An interesting situation arose in the top of the eighth inning in Friday night’s game at Fenway Park between the Astros and the Red Sox. The Astros were trailing 3-2 in the eighth but were threatening with runners on first and second with two outs and Matt Dominguez at the plate against reliever Burke Badenhop.
Dominguez hit a weak line drive to shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who fielded it on one hop and fed second baseman Dustin Pedroia an underhand toss. Dexter Fowler slid in about the same time the ball went into Pedroia’s glove, and second base umpire Pat Hoberg ruled Fowler safe. Pedroia then fired to catcher Christian Vazquez as pinch-runner Gregorio Petit was on his way home. Vazquez, for some reason, took the throw several steps in front of home plate before trying to run Petit down. Petit juked Vazquez and dashed home towards the back of the plate. Vazquez passed the ball to Badenhop covering home, and Petit juked him, too, reaching down and touching the plate with his right hand. Petit was ruled safe as well by home plate umpire Cory Blaser.
Red Sox manager John Farrell came out to challenge the call at second (which, if overturned, would invalidate the play at home plate as there would then be three outs), but after a lengthy review, the call at second was upheld and thus the call at home plate was as well.
[mlbvideo id=”35391351″ width=”600″ height=”336″ /]
The official scoring is a fielder’s choice with the run scoring on Vazquez’s error — no RBI for Dominguez.
The Astros eventually overcame the Red Sox, winning 5-3 in 10 innings. Marisnick knocked in a pair of runs with a double in the top of the 10th and Tony Sipp closed out the bottom half of the inning for the win.
