A weird, confusing and downright frustrating scene played out during Wednesday’s game between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field.
It’s hard to say for sure what happened, but here’s what we do know: We saw no shortage of umpires huddling, two pitches were thrown in about 30 minutes of real-time and Red Sox manager Alex Cora playing the rest of the game under protest.
It all started in the top of the eighth inning when Tampa Bay reliever Adam Kolarek came in for Charlie Morton. In response, Cora sent Sam Travis to the plate to hit for Jackie Bradley Jr.
Got it so far? OK, good.
Travis popped out to the first baseman, prompting Rays manager Kevin Cash to emerge from the Tampa dugout. He called on Chaz Roe from the bullpen, but the pitcher he replaced, Kolarek, wasn’t done. Instead, he replaced Ji-Man Choi at first base while the right-handed Roe would face Mookie Betts.
Roe got Betts to fly out to left, and that’s when things got even weirder. Cash returned alongside infielder Brandon Lowe, who headed to first base. The left-handed Kolarek returned to the mound to face Rafael Devers.
Then all hell broke loose. Cora came out to pick nits with the umpiring crew headlined by home-plate ump Angel Hernandez. A whole lot of huddling and discussing and complaining ensued. It’s hard to say for sure what the problem was, but it seemed to stem from something with the Tampa Bay lineup.
Eventually play resumed, and Devers grounded out on the first pitch he saw, the first pitch delivered in over 20 minutes, and the inning ended. Before play resumed after the commercial break, Cora was back out to state his case with the umpires, and word eventually surfaced the Red Sox were playing the game under protest.
The working theory is that the Red Sox weren’t happy with how the Tampa Bay batting order would shake out after all the weird changes.
Safe to say Cora’s postgame press conference will be quite interesting.
UPDATE (3:24 p.m. ET): Here’s the “official” word on the Red Sox’s protest.
The Red Sox ended up losing the game — for now.
