Garage door gobbles up J.D.'s homer bid

BOSTON -- Oh, the quirks of Fenway Park.

In the bottom of the third inning of Wednesday night's 11-4 win over the Tigers, Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez hit a hard grounder into the corner in left that got stuck.

Stuck on what? Make that stuck in what.

The baseball got crammed into the lower shelf of the garage door that resides just to the left of the Green Monster.

As Tigers left fielder Niko Goodrum went to retrieve it, there was a slight problem. He couldn't pry it loose.

"It's stuck all right," said NESN analyst Dennis Eckersley, who has attended countless games at Fenway as a player and an announcer. "Boy, you don't see that. That's how hard he hit it. That ball was crushed down the line. This ball was scalded."

Martinez did what you are taught to do. He just kept running all the way around the bases. But that obviously was too good to be true.

After third-base umpire Dan Bellino ran over to survey the situation, he signaled for a ground-rule double.

It was humorous to see Bellino and Goodrum continue to try to get the ball loose. Finally, Goodrum kicked it out with his cleat.

Martinez didn't end up scoring. The Red Sox had a 2-0 lead at the time.

"It kind of happened to me [with] Houston when I first came up," said Martinez. "We were in Wrigley, the ball went into the ivy, I put my hands up, the guy kept running, and the umpire came out and said, 'Nope, you can get it.' I said, 'It's in there. I've got to reach in there.' He said, 'Reach in there.' The guy got a home run."

On Wednesday, Martinez hoped there was a way he could get a goofy homer at the expense of an outfielder.

"I remember saying to myself, 'Just keep running. Keep running till they send you back.' It was a weird situation," Martinez said.

Tigers third baseman Jeimer Candelario was just glad that Martinez's wicked grounder -- which sped by him at an exit velocity of 103.5 mph -- didn't take his head off.

"It just got stuck there. It's kind of weird. Niko was [waving his arms] like this and the umpire had to go all the way to see that," Candelario said. "If the umpire doesn't call that a double, that's a home run. It's difficult to read that. I don't know what's going on with that, but it's weird."

Had Candelario ever seen anything like it before?

"I think in Minnesota one time when somebody hit a line drive and it was stuck in between the thing," said Candelario. "But nothing like today. Today was weird."