HOUSTON — What was lost out there, or what was gained, in the air above the right-field wall at Minute Maid Park, in the tangle of bare hands and glove-leather, was two runs. What may have been legitimately earned by and taken from Jose Altuve, what was disputed as a fan-interference call, what was replay-reviewed, what may have landed in Mookie Betts’s glove had the fans not been there — it amounted to two runs. Two runs gained or saved that, right there, in the bottom of the first inning of Game 4 of the American League Championship Series between the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox, could have meant everything, or nothing.
[ALCS Game 4 box score: Red Sox 8, Astros 6]
And some four hours later, when Red Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi picked himself off the grass, after his game-ending, win-saving, hard-charging, full-diving catch with the bases loaded put an exclamation point on a long, meandering, drama-building, run-on sentence of a baseball game — everyone could look up at the scoreboard one last time and see the margin of victory: two runs.
“That was an interesting game,” Red Sox Manager Alex Cora said, “to say the least.”
This 8-6 Red Sox win, in front of 43,277 bitter fans, had participants from both teams near the point of collapse as they repaired to their respective clubhouses. It gave Boston a three-games-to-one lead in the best-of-seven series, with a chance to clinch the AL pennant and a trip to the World Series on Thursday night in Game 5 — in which they will send lefty David Price to the mound on short rest against Astros ace Justin Verlander.
[Astros fan denies interfering on would-be home run]
So much happened over the course of 4 hours 33 minutes — the second-longest nine-inning game in postseason history — that it makes sense to retell it in reverse, from the end, starting with Benintendi’s remarkable catch, which, had he missed it, probably would have brought home all three runs and turned a win into a loss.
Or with the shaky, teetering, six-out save from Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel that was almost blown, one out from completion, on Alex Bregman’s bases-loaded liner to left — the one Benintendi somehow caught. Or the throw Betts, the Red Sox’s right fielder, made an inning earlier, in the eighth, to nab childhood friend Tony Kemp, the Astros’ speedy left fielder, trying to stretch a single into a double — a critical and inexcusable mistake.
“We feel we have the best outfield in the big leagues,” Cora said.
Or the go-ahead homer in the sixth from Jackie Bradley Jr., which produced the eighth and ninth RBI of the series for Boston’s No. 9 hitter and solidified his standing as the series’ likely — yet unlikely — most valuable player should the Red Sox hold on.
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Or the gutsy effort of Boston’s depleted pitching staff, held together at the moment with duct tape and wads of chewing gum, to piece together 27 outs against an Astros lineup that played with a growing sense of desperation. As the lead teetered back and forth, then finally shifted solidly to the Red Sox’s side, their much-maligned bullpen managed to outpitch the more highly regarded one across the field, culminating with Kimbrel, their embattled closer, securing those final six harrowing outs with the tape and gum about to run out.
Or really, the efforts of every Red Sox player who saw the field Wednesday night, in a building that grew hostile quickly thanks to the events of the bottom of the first, but where Boston still improved to 4-0 in road games this postseason. There’s no telling how they will get through Game 5, but they didn’t seem too concerned with that.
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But the only place to start is from the beginning, with the first inning, and the long flyball to right that Altuve hit off Red Sox starter Rick Porcello, who at that time had a two-run lead.
There was a man in an orange polo and another in a navy blue T-shirt in the front row of the right-field bleachers, just beyond a red advertising sign for State Farm, and there was Betts, on the field below, closing in. And all at once their hands converged, along with the ball, at a spot just above the yellow line that demarcates a home run.
What happened next may have done all of the following: defied logic, brought into question the purpose of Major League Baseball’s replay-review system, weighted the score as it kept shifting over the next four-plus hours with an imaginary plus-two in the Astros’ favor and, ultimately, provided the final margin for the Red Sox. Two runs.
What you saw in those few fateful seconds, as the ball descended toward the wall, would depend upon whether you were aligned with the team in white, the team in gray or perhaps the lone figure in black heading in the direction of the landing spot.
“I saw a ball go over the fence,” Astros shortstop Carlos Correa said. “In my eyes it’s a home run.”
“I’m 100 percent positive,” Betts said, “I was going to be able to catch that one. . . . I definitely felt someone push my glove away.”
What umpire Joe West saw, as he thundered toward that spot from his position along the right field line, roughly halfway between the first base bag and the foul pole, was one or both of those fans reaching into the field of play and interfering with Betts’s ability to make the catch. Betts’s glove closed without the ball, which squirted through all those hands and wound up on the warning track. West almost immediately put his fist up to indicate an out — fan interference.
As Betts “jumped up to try to make a catch,” West told a pool reporter after the game, “a fan interfered with him over the playing field. That is why I called spectator interference.” Asked if he felt it was clear call in his mind, West said, “Yes.”
Then, chaos. Altuve looked on in disbelief. Players from both teams stood around and waited. The umpires huddled, then headed for the video replay station. The crowd stirred anxiously. The train conductor atop the left field wall stood by, ready to make his celebratory run down the tracks. And when it was announced that the call stood — an out — the crowd erupted with outraged booing. George Springer, the Astros runner at first, slammed his helmet to the ground in disgust. The train conductor threw it in neutral.
Rule 6.01(e) in the Official Baseball Rules states, “No interference shall be allowed when a fielder reaches over a fence . . . to catch a ball. He does so at his own risk.” At issue was whether the fan(s) reached over the wall to interfere with Betts. At closer look, it appeared they had not. But without a definitive camera angle along the wall, there was not incontrovertible evidence to overturn West’s call — which was made from a distance in real-time — and so it stood.
“The replay official said I was right,” West said.
Instead of a home run for Altuve, it was an out. Instead of a tie ballgame, it was 2-0, Boston. When Betts got back to his dugout at the end of the inning, he was met by a line of high-fives, as he celebrated the greatest catch he never made. The two runs didn’t matter as much when the Astros took leads of 4-3 then 5-4 in the middle innings — before Bradley’s homer put the Red Sox ahead for good — but loomed large as they tried, and failed, to push home the equalizing runs.
“It’s convenient to think about it that way,” Astros Manager A.J. Hinch said of the final margin. “. . . It would have been nice to tie the game there [in the first]. But [at that point] there’s a lot of game left. No, I’m not going to go there.”
The Red Sox were moving towards a crisis-point with their pitching staff, with lefty ace Chris Sale, their designated Game 5 pitcher, scratched and pushed back to Game 6 due to a stomach illness. With Price now lined up for the Game 5 assignment on short rest, the Red Sox were at something close to desperation Wednesday night.
But the Red Sox’s attitude could be summed up as: win Game 4, and worry about Game 5 tomorrow. After Porcello got them to the fifth, they pieced together the next nine outs thusly: three from Joe Kelly, five from Ryan Brasier, one from Matt Barnes.
When the door to the Red Sox’s bullpen opened one last time, in the middle of the eighth, it was Kimbrel who entered. Six outs remained, two more than he had secured all season, with the Red Sox protecting what was at that moment a three-run lead. Once the premier closer of his generation, he hasn’t appeared himself of late. On Wednesday night, he had nothing with which to put away the Astros, but he fired away anyway.
The last out, Bregman’s laser to left, Benintendi’s brilliant catch, came at 13 minutes past midnight Central Time, on Kimbrel’s 35th pitch. Kimbrel has allowed six hits, five walks and five earned runs across 5 ⅓ sloppy innings this postseason, but is somehow four for four in converting save opportunities.
“We trust our guy,” Cora said. “I know it didn’t look pretty, but we got 27 outs.”
These Red Sox won 108 games this season, and have tacked on six more so far in October. They are one more win from the World Series, and five more from cementing their place as one of history’s greatest teams. If they manage it, they will certainly deserve every bit of glory that comes their way.
But around here, at least, they will always wonder what would have happened had Altuve’s drive had one more foot of carry, or if West’s hand, in the heat of the moment, had made the sign for home run, instead of the one for out.
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