Was ever a game in this way won?
Catcher interference — when bat meets mitt, resulting in a hitter being automatically awarded first base — is a rarity. From 1998 through 2009, the Red Sox didn’t see a single instance of the play.
On Saturday, the Sox claimed a 9-7 win over the Angels on the strength of a three-run rally fueled in almost unimaginable fashion — not by one, but two instances of catcher interference in a single inning — to the confused delight of a sellout crowd of 36,594 at Fenway Park.
“Just like we drew it up,” joked Sox manager Alex Cora.
The Sox entered the eighth trailing, 7-6. Kiké Hernández led off with a single against Angels reliever Ryan Tepera. Pinch hitter Raimel Tapia followed by lining a ball that left fielder Taylor Ward tracked down against the stands. But Tapia clipped the glove of catcher Matt Thaiss on his swing, and thus was granted first base.
“I hit that ball really well,” Tapia said through a translator. “If I didn’t hit the catcher’s mitt, that ball would have made a hole in the Green Monster.”
With runners on first and second, pinch hitter Reese McGuire mushed his bat into Thaiss’s glove on a foul ball to load the bases with one out.
“It happens when the hitter is seeing the ball deeper and trying to go the other way,” said McGuire, who in 1,632 big league innings behind the plate has never been flagged for the infraction. “Some catchers [are] trying to frame the pitch and usually that’s what ends up happening. They’re trying to frame it and moving their glove forward. It’s rare for sure. [Thaiss] was obviously too close.”
Gifted a rally, Yu Chang capitalized, delivering a two-run single to give the Sox an 8-7 lead. After the Sox tacked on an insurance run, closer Kenley Jansen blitzed through a perfect seven-pitch ninth to close out a game that seemed unlikely to end well for the Sox given its opening act.
Things fell apart quickly for Red Sox starter Nick Pivetta in the first inning. With two outs and Mike Trout on second following the 300th double of the superstar’s career, Pivetta unleashed 10 straight balls to load the bases and fall behind Gio Urshela, 2-0.
Urshela took one fastball for a called strike, then pulverized an off-target 95-mile-per-hour offering into the Monster seats for the second grand slam of his career and a 4-0 Angels lead. The Sox have allowed 19 first-inning runs this year, most in the majors.
“I wasn’t really synched up with my delivery,” said Pivetta. “Did the best I could with not having my best stuff out there.”
But the Sox responded in the bottom of the first, with Rafael Devers taking advantage of a jet stream to left to loft a two-run, opposite field homer into the first row of the Monster seats to make it 4-2. Devers has seven homers in 15 games, most by a member of the Sox at this stage of the season since Mo Vaughn (eight) in 1995.
The Sox added a run in the third, then took the lead in the fourth when Chang — starting his fourth straight game at short, where the Sox view him as their best defensive option with Hernández in center — crushed a thigh-high Tyler Anderson fastball. His two-run launch cleared the Monster seats, giving the Sox a 5-4 lead and Chang his first hit in 20 plate appearances this year.
“I’m so happy that the team gave me the opportunity to play every day,” Chang — who added a leaping catch to his four RBI day — said through a translator. “I didn’t do well in the beginning, but today, I just got the chance and the homer. I’m so happy.”
Refsnyder (2 for 3 with a pair of walks, a run, and two RBIs) added an RBI single to extend the lead to 6-4.
Yet after his offense bailed him out, Pivetta — who’d found a groove while holding the Angels hitless from the second through fourth — sprung another leak. He gave up hits to all three batters he faced in a game-tying, two-run fifth for the Angels.
Pivetta was done after four-plus innings, yielding six runs on five hits and three walks. The Sox are the only team in baseball that hasn’t had a starter record an out in the sixth inning, and the rotation’s ERA is 6.99. The bullpen has logged the most innings (64) in baseball.
“It’s been tough,” Cora said. “We were able to survive. But it’s kind of too soon to survive, to be honest with you. We’ve got to be better early on. We will be.”
Five Sox relievers delivered an inning each to keep the game within reach, allowing just one run over five innings. That tally — notched against lefthander Richard Bleier in the sixth — merely built drama for the eighth-inning rally, fueled by the overeager glove of Thaiss.
“It’s awful,” said Thaiss, still in cleats with his head down at his locker 15 minutes after the game. “That’s the reason we lost. It stings. I’m sick to my stomach.”
The 7-8 Sox, meanwhile, expressed relief at finding a way to win.
“Interesting win,” said Cora. “But we’ll take it.”
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