Red Sox sense Yankees’ secrecy after outrageous strike-3 call

Don’t worry, the Boston Red Sox did themselves no favors on Friday night in their first appearance of the season at Yankee Stadium, where they faced the hated New York Yankees.

After a rain interruption in the middle of the third inning, Red Sox starter Tanner Houck returned to the field, but didn’t look as good as he did in the first two innings and got himself into quite a bit of trouble. That was made worse by second baseman Enmanuel Valdez costing the team a double play by botching a grounder (which only resulted in one out) and then sailing an easy flip to Ceddanne Rafaela that resulted in no outs and a run when they could have already ended the inning.

First, the Red Sox are battling Mother Nature, their biggest rival, the Yankees, and even themselves when it comes to defending the middle of the infield. The last thing they needed was to face Roberto Ortiz’s umpiring team on top of that. Of course, they had to, and Tyler O’Neill felt it the worst.

Facing Nestor Cortes in the sixth inning, O’Neill tried to get something going when the Red Sox were down 3-1 in the game. He fought a tough battle with Cortes, dropping pitch after pitch, three total with two strikes and two when he had a full count against him. Then came the ninth pitch of the at-bat, when Cortes tried to hit a backdoor sweeper. He didn’t sweep nearly enough and didn’t even get close to the plate.

Beat 3.

Being a referee is not an easy job. I know that. There are some calls where you can understand why they get missed. A sinker or splitter emerges from the bottom of the zone but looks like it crossed. A breaking ball breaks out of the zone but could have potentially grazed the corner. That makes sense.

However, it will never make sense when you see a pitch like this. At no point was it anywhere on the plate, and yet Ortiz still beat O’Neill. The Red Sox outfielder told you everything you needed to know, as a player who never argues was visibly upset with the umpire after taking a strikeout on ball 4.

Worse still, this was just one costly example of that. On several occasions, the Yankees used multiple pitchers to take advantage of a home decision against their hated rival. I’m not saying this is a conspiracy theory, but if there was something fishy going on, it wouldn’t be surprising considering how many outside balls were called strikes (the Red Sox admittedly got a decision or two, but that’s normal).

If Boston is going to have to deal with situations like this in its second series of the year against the Yankees, they better come up with some magic to overcome both the Yankees and the umpires. They’re going to need it.