Twins drop opener after a whole lot of 'weird stuff'

BOSTON -- A relief pitcher pinch-running for another relief pitcher scored as part of the game-winning rally and players later had to mill around for what seemed like far too long for a replay review caused in part by Fenway Park’s right-field dimensions -- and neither of those had anything to do with the weirdest occurrence of Tuesday’s game.

None of that chaos in the 10th inning would have happened had it not been for a bizarre rally by the Red Sox in the eighth highlighted by a declined catcher’s interference play, of all things, and the Twins were as baffled as they were frustrated following a 5-4, 10-inning loss capped by a three-run Boston comeback.

“Some weird stuff,” Jose Miranda said. “Baseball is a game where things like that can happen. Obviously, that last inning was a weird one.”

The last few innings, really.

A shaky Sonny Gray and a dominant Chris Sale somehow evened out for a 1-1 stalemate before the Twins handed a 2-1 lead to setup man Griffin Jax for the eighth -- and that’s when the bizarreness began in earnest.

After Kiké Hernández led off with a single and Triston Casas struck out, pinch-hitter Reese McGuire hit what appeared to be a squibber in the direction of Miranda, but home-plate umpire Jordan Baker gestured for catcher’s interference, with McGuire’s bat hitting the mitt of Twins catcher Christian Vázquez.

McGuire stopped running hard down the baseline while Miranda, who had no idea that interference had been called, flicked the ball to Donovan Solano at first to complete the play.

That’s where it should have ended. The Twins would have made the out at first, but McGuire would have been awarded first base anyway, with Hernández awarded second.

“I knew we needed to catch the ball and not move and complete the interference,” Solano said.

But things went haywire when Hernández saw no fielder at third base and took off from second, because catcher’s interference doesn’t immediately result in the play being ruled dead.

Critically, Miranda’s throw had pulled Solano off the bag, and seeing the runner moving to third and knowing the play was live, Solano threw to third instead of retreating to first. That meant the Twins got an out neither at first base nor at third on the play.

And here’s the thing: The offensive team can choose to decline the catcher’s interference if the actual outcome of the play would be more beneficial. First and third is a better situation than first and second -- so the Red Sox were allowed to let the result of the play stand and wipe out the catcher’s interference. One batter later, a fielder’s choice brought home the tying run.

“Never [seen it],” Jax said. “I was very confused. And I'm still confused.”

“That’s the first time I’ve seen that in my life,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

After the Twins plated a pair in the top of the 10th to take a 4-2 lead, the Red Sox loaded the bases with none out, spurred by a wild pitch on a strikeout that went through the legs of the typically ironclad Vázquez.

And following McGuire’s game-tying, two-run single, it briefly looked like the Twins would escape after a baserunning error by Casas set up another unique play, a 5-3 double play in which Miranda was simply able to tag the lead runner jogging next to him before he threw to first.

But Verdugo then skied a ball down the right-field line, into the strangely shaped corner around Pesky’s Pole just 302 feet from home plate. Max Kepler watched as what would have been a less chaotic play in any other ballpark soared past the hands of fans reaching out from the stands and thudded into the dirt for a walk-off single.

Or was it?

“It looked to me like it hit a fan when it was in full action,” Kepler said. “It was kind of all a blur.”

Though others with the Twins also felt the ball grazed the hands of a fan standing in foul territory before landing, a lengthy replay review confirmed that the latest in a chain of oddities would lead to a third consecutive Minnesota loss.

“The thing is, none of these individual things are the sole reason why we lost the game,” Baldelli said. “It was a low-scoring game. We needed to get some baserunners out there. They just found a way. They just put the ball in play and found some space -- and we lost.”