For the 40th time in his managerial career, New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone was ejected, and the reasoning came one pitch after Aaron Judge appeared to be robbed of a home run by the umpires at George M. Steinbrenner Field on Sunday afternoon.
The Tampa Bay Rays’ replacement home field, which usually serves as the Yankees’ spring training facility, was part of the problem when Judge roped a ball 111.7 mph off his bat to left field in the top of the eighth inning. It wasn’t a matter of whether it would leave the park; would the ball stay fair?
The umpires called the ball foul, including home plate umpire Adam Beck and third base coach Scott Barry, but it went to a replay review called on by the crew instead of the Yankees.
Upon video review, it appeared the ball was fair as it landed in a tree behind the stadium in left field. But when umpires came back with their response, the call on the field stood as a foul ball.
The Yankees’ dugout couldn’t believe it, and things got worse when Boone disagreed with the next pitch, a slider that Beck believed caught the strike zone to punch out Judge.
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Boone emerged from the dugout and unloaded on Beck, but he also took the time to yell at Barry. He walked down the third baseline to address the call they both made regarding Judge’s foul ball.
“The audacity of the call standing is remarkable,” Boone said, per CBS Sports. “It’s a home run, didn’t go our way, though.”
Judge added, “I think everybody is kind of scratching their head, but nothing we can do about it. They missed it, and we just have to move on.”
Luckily for the Yankees, it didn’t hurt them in the end. Thanks to a brilliant performance by Max Fried on the mound, the Rays were held to just two hits, while his teammates smashed nine in the 4-0 win to complete the series. New York won three out of four games, with their only loss coming in a blown save situation for Devin Williams on Saturday night in Tampa Bay.
If Judge’s home run had been ruled fair, he would’ve been tied with Los Angeles Angels’ Mike Trout and Seattle Mariners’ Cal Raleigh for the second-most in MLB with eight on the year. Oakland Athletics’ Tyler Soderstrom leads MLB with nine so far.
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