The Red Sox Yankees disputed call on Sunday afternoon did not cost Boston fifteen runs. It just cost them the thread, and everything after came apart in a hurry. Ceddanne Rafaela laid out for a ball he emphatically believed he caught, the call on the field said trap, replay review looked at it and let the call stand, and from there the Red Sox unraveled into a 16-1 Yankees win.
What makes it sting in Boston is the shape of the loss. Heliot Ramos hit a three-run homer in the fifth, which is a bad inning. Austin Wells homering twice in a nine-run eighth is not a bad inning, that is a demolition, the kind where the position player is warming in the bullpen and everybody in the dugout is studying their shoelaces. New York widened its lead in the AL wild-card race and clinched the season series against Boston on the same afternoon. Late August, division rival, head-to-head tiebreaker gone. That travels with you.
Rafaela's frustration is the honest part of this. Center fielders play on faith. You dive because you believe you have it, and when the replay center in New York looks at the same frames you did and comes back with the other answer, there is nothing left to do but stand there with dirt on your chest.
checked the almanac: this is the sport that spent decades arguing about eyes. june 2, 2010, armando galarraga retires 26 straight, jim joyce calls the 27th man safe, and a perfect game evaporates on a call joyce owned publicly the next morning. that play is a big reason expanded replay exists at all. and replay still cannot tell you what a glove felt like.
What comes next is mercifully quick. Boston is back home Monday night against Seattle at 6:46 ET, which is the best medicine available for a team that just got embarrassed: another game, immediately. The Yankees head west for the Angels at 9:39 ET Monday, carrying the season series and a healthier wild-card cushion.
The thing I want to see Monday is Rafaela's first ball in the gap. Guys who play that hard usually answer fast.
