Red Sox top Rays in Game 3 on bizarre call that is, believe it or not, in the rulebook
By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer
BOSTON — Baseball is an expanse.
The limitlessness of what’s possible within the confines of the diamond is forever startling. Every game is played under the same set of rules, but the majority of those rules rarely see the light of day. They are dusted off and presented to the public once in a blue moon, usually during the cauldron of bizarro baseball that is the month of October.
As is so often the case, the MLB postseason becomes the witching hour, a time for the supernatural and unbelievable to reign supreme. Extra innings only amplify things.
On Sunday, on a delightful, crisp New England afternoon — the type of fall day to bring out your favorite autumnal outfit that has been crumpled for months in the back of your closet — the peculiar and spectacular of postseason baseball returned.
One day before the city is set to celebrate a rare, rescheduled October edition of the Boston Marathon, the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox played the baseball equivalent of 26.2 miles. It was a lengthy epic with an ending that nobody saw coming.
In the top of the 13th inning, with two outs, the score even at 4-4 and Yandy Díaz on first, Rays center fielder Kevin Kiermaier laced a rocket to the right-center-field gap. The ball slammed off the waist-high fence and ricocheted first off the ground and then against right fielder Hunter Renfroe’s thigh before bounding over the wall.
Confusion immediately ensued.
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The play was initially ruled a ground-rule double, meaning Díaz, who with two outs was running on contact, was forced to remain at third base after a play on which he almost certainly would have otherwise scored.
Tampa’s bench instantly exploded in dissent, flailing about and gesturing to crew chief Sam Holbrook that because the ball hit off Renfroe before going over, Díaz should be given home.
Manager Kevin Cash emerged from the dugout to ask for a review. The 37,224 fans at Fenway Park grew silent amid the confusion. Twitter, as it is wont to do, grew loud amid the confusion. I’m only 26 years old, but I’ve watched two lifetimes worth of baseball — pros, college, Little League, adult Sunday ball, whatever — and I have never, ever seen anything like that.
A stadium, a press box, an internet full of baseball experts all were rendered clueless by a bizarre bounce. We don’t know what we don’t know until it happens before our eyes and we’re forced to reckon with the limits of our experience.
Cash admitted as much postgame. "It's a quirky play," he said. "I wish I had a better assessment or opinion on it. I don't think I've seen that and certainly not seen it with the magnitude it was played tonight."
The umpires upheld the ground-rule double on the field. Díaz was placed on third, Mike Zunino struck out to end the inning, and Christian Vázquez promptly and predictably sent everyone home in the bottom of the 13th with a big fly over the Monster in left.
It doesn’t say this in the rulebook, but if you have to break out the rulebook in the top half of an extra inning in the postseason, the other team will score in the bottom half. Those are the rules — ask Doubleday.
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After the game, Holbrook spoke to the media, a relative rarity for umpires after game-changing calls. But good on Holbrook, who set the record straight. "It's in the rulebook. It's a ground-rule double. There's no discretion that the umpires have," he explained.
"First of all, thank you all. I really appreciate you letting us come in here and explain the rule. A lot of times that doesn't happen, and things get messed up, but I really appreciate it."
Holbrook then broke out the big, ol’ ancient book of rules.
"This is our umpire manual, and what I'd like to do is just quote from the manual," he said. "It's item 20 in the manual, which is, balls deflected out of play, which is in reference to official baseball Rule 5.06(b)(4)(H). It says, ‘If a fair ball not in flight is deflected by a fielder and goes out of play, the award is two bases from the time of the pitch.’"
It was a correct call that nonetheless might not feel correct to those outside the Boston metropolitan area. But how you feel about it is irrelevant.
These bizarre rules exist for a reason. Someone in the annals of baseball had a fever dream and somehow visualized this scenario and wrote it down. If there’s no intent — and there clearly wasn’t on Renfroe’s part, Cash acknowledged as much postgame — then it’s a double. Simple as that.
Making something such as this a discretion call usually would result in a much more complicated scenario and would depend entirely on the umpire’s perspective. Holbrook, when asked postgame, said that he prefers the rule as is. Odds say we’ll never see a play like this again; the baseball gods say it’ll happen tomorrow.
But none of that matters to the Rays, for whom it was a cruel end to a phenomenal baseball game. Tampa Bay jumped out early on an Austin Meadows two-run tater in the first before Nathan Eovaldi settled down and worked through the fifth.
Boston came back in the third with two singles, a Kiké Hernandéz joint to tie things up and a Rafael Devers bouncer up the middle to take the lead. Then Hernández, who is could-cook-an-egg-on-him hot right now, slammed a dinger in the fifth to extend the lead to two.
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Despite a rocky, two-inning start from Drew Rasmussen, Tampa’s bullpen stayed steady (surprise, surprise), and the game coasted through the middle innings. Things stayed quiet, with Boston nursing a 4-2 lead until the eighth, when a shaky Hansel Robles was tasked with retiring the middle of Tampa’s order.
The Boston reliever, who is unfairly renowned for his tendency to point upward at home runs during his Mets tenure, had been dynamite as of late for Boston, but he clearly lacked The Good Stuff™ tonight. He allowed an incredibly impressive leadoff, opposite-field blast over the Monster to the 20-year-old Wander Franco before doubles from Meadows and the King Of October Randy Arozarena knotted it up 4-4.
And that’s where things stayed for a while. In the entire regular season, MLB used the very controversial runner-on-second rule in extras. Well, in October, there’s none of that rubbish, so for the first time in 2021, we were treated to old-school extra innings. And let’s just say the hitters looked out of practice.
Red Sox starter-turned-bullpen-super-soldier Nick Pivetta was absolutely vital in the bonus frames, channeling his inner 2018 Eovaldi to tally seven strikeouts in four innings of scoreless relief. After being microwaved into a puddle of soup by the Orioles just two weeks ago in a must-win game, the 6-foot-5 lank-lord dominated Tampa’s lineup, giving Boston a chance in the bottom of the 13th, even if he was helped by the aforementioned fortunate bounce off Renfroe’s leg.
But unfair or not, this game will not be remembered for Pivetta’s sparkling stint or even for Boston’s longtime catcher coming up huge to send everyone home.
This was The Renfroe Ricochet Game, The Boston Bounce, The Kiermaier Carom. Take your pick for the title, but if Boston wins the series tomorrow in Game 4, we’ll remember that play for a long, long time.
"Yeah, man, I'm just in awe right now," Kiermaier, the longest-tenured Ray lamented afterward. "That's the ruling. The umpires explained it to me. So I can't go against that. The rules are what they are. But, man, that's a heartbreaker. I can't believe that happened."
Neither can we, Kevin. Neither can we.
Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter @Jake_Mintz.