On Thursday night at Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros played a crazy game, but the strangest thing that happened was a double play.
What could have been a pitcher’s battle between Zack Greinke of Houston and Eduardo Rodriguez of Boston turned into a bullpen-filled hitters duel, with six lead changes and the Red Sox pulling away to win 12-8. It also featured one of the strangest defensive plays of the season, with Houston squandering a chance to make it a seventh lead change in the seventh inning by squandering a man on first with an odd infield grounder.
With Yuli Gurriel at the plate, he swung at a 1-2 pitch that bounced right in front of his feet near the batter’s box. The broadcaster on the call initially thought Gurriel fouled the pitch off his foot, but it actually bounced on the dirt in fair territory and got extremely close to his body but stayed in fair territory.
Except for the umpire and Red Sox catcher Christian Vazquez, who threw the ball to first for an out and then began coordinating throws around the infield, no one seemed to realize the action was live. The Astros appeared perplexed that play hadn’t been ruled dead, as the runner on first looked to float into the ether for a moment before being tagged out to end the inning.
Baker came out to criticize the play, and it turns out he had a valid point. He was tossed, and the Astros were unable to rally without him in the dugout. Despite his protests and how it may have appeared to him, everything turned out as it should have: as an extremely unlikely infield hit.
It simply goes to prove that you should always be running things out and keeping your head swiveled because you never know when Weird Baseball will strike.
