Chaos.
There was no other way to describe what transpired in the sixth inning of what turned out to be a rain-shortened, 3-1 Yankees win over the Red Sox.
First it was a 50-minute delayed start to the game which didn't see a drop of rain. Then came the downpour that encompassed much of what was unfolding as a dominant start from Red Sox' starter Nathan Eovaldi. And then, with the game tied at 1-1, the visitors' dugout erupted when it was determined that Christian Vazquez did not check his swing on an 0-2 slider with the bases loaded and two outs in the sixth.
“It’s one of those that obviously over the course of the game we didn’t agree with some calls and I think everybody showed emotion,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “It’s one of those, it’s a big at-bat, bases loaded two outs, (Gerrit) Cole makes a pitch, we thought he checked his swing but it didn’t go our way. There were a few guys that expressed their emotions on that one.”
The call resulting in a Vazquez strikeout led to the ejection of bench coach Wil Venable and backup catcher Kevin Plawecki. As it turned out, both ultimately missed the real mess.
That came when the Red Sox proceeded to take the Yankee Stadium field.
After warming up in the outfield, Alex Verdugo attempted to throw a baseball to a young Red Sox fan. The ball was caught by a Yankees fan, who proceeded to throw it at Verdugo, hitting the outfielder in the back as he was preparing for the half-inning's first pitch.
The left fielder wasn't going to let it go.
“Obviously, we’ve all seen it," Verdugo said. "A fan threw a ball at me, hit me in my back. It was pretty ironic, like you said. We talked about it earlier in the day as well. I come to expect it when I’m out here. The trash talking, the bringing up family members, the having everybody chant, excuse my language, (expletive) Verdugo and all these things. I’m used to that. I don’t care. That’s cool with me. But the moment somebody throws … as players, we’re throwing balls in the stands to try to give people souvenirs, try to make little kids’ days and things like that. Just to hear people saying throw it back and then someone actually throws it back and it felt like it was targeted towards me, it doesn’t sit right with me.”
He added, "There was a little Red Sox fan like right in that little corner. I tried to get it to him and obviously yanked it two feet to the right and just happened to land in some Yankees fan’s hand and like I said, I was going back to try to get ready for the pitch to be delivered and I hear, ‘Throw it back.’ I’m in my stance getting ready and I take a peek, and as I look back, I see the ball heading down and then it hits me in my back. For me, like I said, I don’t care how much (expletive) you want to talk. I don’t care about the rivalry, anything like that. At the end of the day, this is a game. We still want to keep our players healthy, keep our players safe. There’s no reason to be throwing stuff back on to the field ever. There really isn’t. Yeah, I lost my cool there for a second. I was pretty pissed, but having some time to think about it now to calm down and relax, it is what it is. I’m just happy that nothing came from it, nobody got hurt, I didn’t get hit in the face or anything like that, or the back of the head. All that’s good, but as fans, you all have to be better. It’s that simple. I don’t care how much you hate a team, how much a rivalry is. You don’t throw shit at people, man. It’s that simple. You wouldn’t do that to somebody in the street, you wouldn’t do that to me if we were standing right next to each other without a 40-foot gap and a fence to separate us. So, it’s just one of those things. I’m here to play hard, I’m here to interact, bullshit and give kind of give it back to the fans. Jaw back with them, bullshit back with them, but that’s part of the fun. It’s kind of like that fun. But like I said, once you throw shit back at players, you’re crossing the line. And my personal feelings of that is the line was crossed. I just wasn’t going to sit there and stand for it.
“I have to re-watch it. For me in the moment like I said, my eyes were locked on a certain section of the crowd and where I knew I had threw the ball at, so I was kind of just trying to see. I was probably surfing through like maybe 10-12 heads right in that little area, so I don’t really know who threw it, but obviously looking back and talking, you have every fan flipping you birds and talking smack, so it’s like, you don’t really know who did it. I’m sure there’s a picture out there of him, I’m sure he’s probably known like who did it now. Like I said, man, I don’t care how much you hate somebody or hate a team. I wouldn’t want any Boston fans throwing shit at Yankees players or any player in general. That’s just the known rule.”
Oh, and the Yankees came back after the brouhaha -- which included the Red Sox briefly taking their team off the field -- and got back-to-back homers from Gary Sanchez and Gleyber Torres to take the lead for good.
The game was paused at 10:48 p.m. and ultimately called 52 minutes later. One crazy night was punctuated on the field, with some more postgame emotions still left over.
"First things first, I want to get this out of my chest," Cora said. "I know what I did in ‘17, I disrespected the game. I was part of it in ‘17. But one thing I learned last year and this is probably something I forgot throughout my career, this is just a game. It’s a game. This is not life and death, it’s not this drama that people want. And the fact that people come to the ballpark and decided to throw a baseball to one of the players, it just -- I was in shock that happened. Booney texted me already apologizing. This is nothing against the Yankee fans because I do believe they’re up there with the best in the business, the best in the world, but that kind of like -- we lost the game, the rain, all this stuff whatever, but the fact that Alex got hit by a baseball, it was like wow did we really get to this? And like I said, I’m not -- I got suspended, I did what I did. I’ve been very up front with everybody. I did my thing, I disrespected the game, I know that. But, today was one of those days that it was like do we really have to get into doing this? It has to come down to this? To come here is fun to play here. This is Yankee Stadium, this is one of the best places to play any sport. We love to come here. But stuff like that it’s like wow we have to come down to this. It’s just on guy or whoever did it. It sucks. But yeah I just want to be up front with that one. I needed to get that off my chest."