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BOSTON – Kevin Kiermaier was confident Yandy Diaz would score and give the Tampa Bay Rays a 5-4 lead in the 13th inning of the ALDS tiebreaker on Sunday night against the Boston Red Sox.
The Rays outfielder hit one on the Fenway Park right-field fence, the ball bouncing off the ground before deflecting the right hip of Red Sox right-fielder Hunter Renfroe and jumping over the fence.
If the ball hadn’t bounced over the fence, Diaz would have easily scored. Instead, team manager Sam Holbrook called the referees back to the infield and they made a decision: the ball would be considered a brace and Diaz would have to return to third base. The score would remain tied at 4, only to be broken half an inning later by a home run from Red Sox wide receiver Christian Vazquez, cementing a 6-4 victory in Boston and setting up a playoff game for Tampa Bay on Monday in the match. 4 at Fenway Park.
“I can’t believe this has happened or we don’t have a chance to score there,” Kiermaier said. “On the one hand, I crushed that ball. I was hoping to leave the court. I had a lot of pops and pops but no pops. First and foremost, for it to happen there, this just doesn’t make sense to me. “
Holbrook said the entire six-man referee squad came to the same conclusion based on MLB referee handbook rule 5.06, which states that any good ball deflected by the fielder in the stands allow the batter and the runner to advance from two bases.
“Very simple,” said Holbrook. “From a referee’s point of view, a very simple manual in rule.”
After the decision, Rays manager Kevin Cash asked if he could do something about the situation. The referees went to replay to verify that Renfroe had not intentionally kicked the ball. Cash agreed that Renfroe did not intentionally ricochet the ball out of the stadium.
“It’s just the rule,” Cash said. “That’s how it goes. It was very unfortunate for us. I think it was pretty obvious that [Kiermaier] or Yandy was going to come and score, but it didn’t work out for us. “
Renfroe said he tried to catch the ball before it bounced off the wall.
“He happened to look up and the wall was right there,” Renfroe said. “Hopefully, luckily, they bounced over the fence and posted a ground rule double.”
Cash wished the coin had created a different result, but expressed his acceptance of the result.
“Certainly at the moment you can appreciate a general rule, but we put a lot of importance on these referees and we have now introduced the video for the referees,” said Cash. “I think it would be a very easy call if someone would step in and say it was obvious they were going to score. Saying that has been a rule for a long time and we are going to play within the rules that are presented to us. this season.”
But the rules haven’t removed the sting of the moment for the Rays clubhouse.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Kiermaier said. “Simple and simple.”
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