NEW YORK — As much as hot dogs and Cracker Jack and a cold beer on a hot sunny night, the New York Yankees getting the occasional break from umpires in a tight game at Yankee Stadium ranks right up there in baseball traditions, too.
It happened again Tuesday night, when a potential big inning for the Tampa Bay Rays was stripped away when a ''safe'' call on a bad throw at second base in the sixth was reversed and called an out, even though there was no obvious video replay that showed enough to overturn the call on the field. Momentum flipped drastically, and the Yankees wound up winning 2-0.
“I thought it was a bad call, and I think it cost us the game,” said Rays third baseman Yandy Diaz through translator Manny Navarro. Diaz was the runner at second base, and had a bird's eye view of the critical play in the sixth inning of a tight game. “We could have at least scored one run. After that, we got a hit and we could have scored some more with that play.
“(The reversed call) was a surprise. I think a 5-year-old would have been able to see that I was safe at second. I don't there even needed to be a replay. I think I was safe.''
Rays manager Kevin Cash fully understood how much the reversal flipped the script in what could have been a big inning.
"It looked like a throwing error, but they reviewed it,'' Cash said. "It was big. An out and a runner we swapped, so it's big. I'll be curious what overturned it. Just from the replay, it looked a little surprising, did they have enough to overturn that?''
It wasn't only the 5-year-olds who thought Diaz was safe at second. Even New York Yankees catcher Jose Trevino said he was “1,000 percent sure” Torres had come off the base and starting pitcher Gerrit Cole also didn’t expect the call to be overturned.
After the reversal, the Rays got singles from Manuel Margot and Ji-Man Choi to load the bases, but then Randy Arozarena grounded into a double play on the first pitch he saw to end the threat.
It was an unfortunate turn of events for the Rays, who got a tremendous pitching performance from Corey Kluber. He pitched six innings, and gave up just four hits and two unearned runs on errors by usually-solid outfielders Margot and Arozarena in the fourth inning.
The Yankees (45-16) now lead the Rays (35-26) by a season-high 10 games in the American League East race.
Watch Yandy Diaz's postgame interview
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