Wild Night
Thursday, June 10, 2021 – Fenway Park, Section 43
Red Sox 12, Astros 8
This was my first game of the year in my Tenth Man Plan season ticket seats in the right field bleachers. It was worth the wait – it ended up one of the most crazy and entertaining games in a few years, and the enthusiastic, near-capacity crowd was into every pitch. Several lead changes saw the Red Sox go from down 1-0, to up 2-1, to down 3-2, to up 4-3, to down 7-4, then tied 7-7 followed by immediately going down 8-7, to finally taking a 12-8 lead for good. But that’s only half the story.
In a wild sixth inning, with the bases loaded and one out, Rafael Devers hit a fly to shallow center. The crowd roared as it clanked off the shortstop’s glove, then booed as the ump made the out sign. Confusion reigned as it was unclear who had been called out (Xander Bogaerts had gotten to the the second base bag just as the throw came in from the outfield) but finally the scoreboard showed IF6. We finally realized the infield fly rule had been called, so it was Devers who was out. Two batters later, with the game tied and the bases reloaded, a shirtless fan ran on the field and was tackled by security in front of home plate. Then Christian Vazquez was hit by a pitch to force in the go-ahead run, and Christian Arroyo walked to force in another. Bobby Dalbec followed with a double off the Monster to cap off the scoring with two more runs.
But the craziness didn’t stop there. In the top of the seventh, the Astros had a runner on first and one out. The batter hit a dribbler that rolled just in front of the plate. He stepped out of the batters box like it had hit him, and I assumed it was a foul that had hit off his foot and rolled. The batter must have too, because he sauntered slowly back toward first. Vazquez was apparently the only one paying attention, because he realized the ump had signalled that the ball didn’t hit the batter and that it was, in fact, fair. So Vaz threw to first to retire the batter, then Dalbec chased the runner back toward second base, where he was tagged out by Arroyo for your classic 2-3-4 inning-ending double play. (Because it was the seventh inning stretch, the scoreboard never said what had happened; I had to look at the postgame comments and tweets to sort it all out later.) Astros manager Dusty Baker was ejected after expressing his displeasure over the play.
Matt Barnes came in to nail down the victory, and we celebrated a very wild and entertaining win. My favorite pictures from the night are below.
