The Tampa Bay Rays swept the New York Yankees in the American League Division Series with a 4-3 win in Game 3 on Wednesday night, Oct. 7, at Yankee Stadium. In the sixth inning a replay review overturned what had first been called a two-run home run by Anthony Volpe. The review found that a fan had interfered with the ball, and Volpe was credited with an RBI double instead.
What happened on the play
The Rays led 4-2 in the sixth inning with two outs and George Lombard Jr. on first base. Volpe hit a drive to left field, about 357 feet according to the Associated Press, off Rays right-hander Griffin Jax, and it was first called a two-run homer. The AP wrote: “It was a matter of inches as to whether a fan reached over the fence and interfered with the ball or it would have cleared the wall without help.” The MLB game record describes the double as going to left center field.
Then “a lengthy video review determined a fan reached over the wall to catch the ball as Rays left fielder Victor Mesa Jr. tried in vain for a leaping grab,” the AP wrote. ESPN’s Buster Olney, in a story posted at 10:50 p.m. ET on Oct. 7, described Mesa “pleading for fan interference” and the umpires gathering on the infield. ESPN also wrote that the ball was “seemingly being pushed by a wind blowing from right field to left,” and that replay showed “a fan in a navy blue Yankees jacket reached beyond the fence for the ball, seemingly into the field of play, with the ball ricocheting off the fan’s hands and into the stands.”
The ruling, in plain terms: when a spectator touches a ball that is still in play, the umpires decide where the batter and runners would have ended up. The AP reported that replay umpire Malachi Moore made the call in Major League Baseball’s Replay Center. MLB’s statement, as printed by the AP, read: “After viewing all relevant angles, the Replay Official definitively determined the spectator interfered with the ball over the field of play. The ball would not have left the playing field nor would it have been caught. The call is OVERTURNED, there was spectator interference and no home run. Additionally, the Replay Official scored one run and placed the batter-runner at 2B.”
So the Replay Official placed Volpe at second base and scored Lombard, which made it 4-3. CBS Sports explained that, in the replay center’s judgment, Mesa would not have caught the ball, and that Lombard was allowed to score because he was running on contact with two outs. Rays manager Kevin Cash said the Rays’ replay official told him Lombard had passed second base when the ball hit the fan’s hand, the AP reported. The AP said the homer would have tied the score at 4.
What CBS Sports printed as the rule
CBS Sports cited the spectator-interference rule. Under the rule as CBS printed it, a fan who reaches over a barrier and touches a ball in play is treated as having interfered intentionally. CBS printed its final sentence: “Batter and runners shall be placed where in the umpire’s judgment they would have been had the interference not occurred.”
ESPN wrote that “Major League Baseball’s interference rule gives the umpires discretion to make that kind of ruling.”
What the players and managers said
The AP wrote that “players and managers on both sides mostly agreed the right decision was made.”
- Yankees manager Aaron Boone: “I thought they got it right. When he hit it, to my eye looking out there, I was a little concerned right away because it felt like something — I wasn’t sure. And then seeing the replay and seeing it unfold, I thought they did the right thing.”
- Rays manager Kevin Cash, per the AP: “I don’t know if he would have caught it or not caught it, the guy would have scored or not.” CBS Sports described him as having “argued that the play should have been overturned into an out”; the Cash quote the AP printed does not itself make that argument.
- Mesa, speaking in Spanish, per the AP: “It was interference. I believe I might have even been able to get to that ball. … I think they could have even called an out, because I was right there. Everything happens for a reason. It was kind of an in-between call.”
- Injured Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge: “He almost had a big home run. Off the bat, I liked the chances.” The AP wrote that Judge knew once he saw the side-angle replay that it was fan interference.
- Yankees starter Max Fried: “You go from a tie game to down one. (Volpe) made a great swing, and it’s just the way the game goes sometimes. It’s unfortunate because that changes the game.”
- Volpe: “Just hoping for the best. Crazy.” Volpe also said: “I mean, we lost. That’s what we’re dealing with now. That’s just what happened.”
How the rest of the game unfolded
The Rays scored first in the third inning on a single by Jonathan Aranda, and the Yankees tied it in the bottom half on a Ben Rice single that scored Spencer Jones, according to the MLB game record. Ryan Vilade’s solo homer off Fried put the Rays ahead 2-1 in the fourth, and a Jones double that scored Volpe tied it 2-2. In the sixth, before Volpe’s drive, Mesa hit a two-run homer off Fried that scored Junior Caminero and made it 4-2.
After Volpe’s play, the AP wrote that “Austin Wells would have been [on base] as well if not for a successful ABS challenge by the Rays.” Per the MLB game record, that was an automated ball-strike (ABS) challenge: the Rays challenged a pitch call, the call was overturned, and Wells was called out on strikes. The AP reported “another slight delay after some fans in left threw debris onto the field,” and Jones then struck out against Jax to end the inning.
MLB.com reported that Nick Martinez started for the Rays and gave up two runs while recording 11 outs. Ian Seymour, the winning pitcher, picked up four outs. Bryan Baker got the save in all three games, and ESPN reported that Trent Grisham struck out against Baker on a changeup for the 27th out. The attendance was 48,865.
What the sweep means
MLB.com reported that the Rays “earned their spot by completing the first sweep in a best-of-five postseason series (or longer) in franchise history, and they dealt the Yankees only their second sweep (alongside the 1980 ALCS) in a best-of-five series.” It was the Rays’ first postseason series win since the 2020 ALCS.
The 1996 Jeffrey Maier play, as the AP tied it in
The AP tied the play to Jeffrey Maier, “nearly 30 years to the day after young Yankees fan Jeffrey Maier reached over the right-field wall at Yankee Stadium on a ball hit by Derek Jeter in the 1996 American League Championship Series against Baltimore.” The AP wrote: “With no replay system in place back then, the home team benefited from umpires calling it a home run instead of interference, and New York went on to win the World Series.”
What comes next
MLB.com’s page, early Thursday, said Chicago led the Guardians-White Sox series 2-1. Game 1 of the AL Championship Series is Monday at Tropicana Field, with the Rays hosting the winner of that series.
The Yankees’ offseason
ESPN wrote that the loss “extended the Yankees’ championship drought to 17 seasons.”
Judge, speaking about the front office, told ESPN: “We’re the Yankees. I feel like they should go all-in and do what they need to do and if we got holes, it’s finding certain players or personnel, whatever we need, we got to go out there and get it.” Asked whether the front office and ownership had gone “all-in enough” to end the drought, he said: “It’s tough to say.”
ESPN reported that Boone, who has one year left on his contract, said he would like to return and added: “those conversations and things are for another day.” ESPN also quoted Boone after the loss: “They beat us. They’ve obviously had a great season and get to continue on. But for us, there’s just no easy way. It’s a broken clubhouse.”
MLB.com quoted Rice: “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a failure since we weren’t able to get the job done. … They outplayed us, plain and simple.”
What is not known
Beyond a physical description of the fan, a navy blue Yankees jacket per ESPN and “a man’s hands” per MLB.com, the reports add only that he “was escorted out of Yankee Stadium by security and police,” according to the AP. No name, ban or charge had been reported as of Thursday morning.
No statement from the Yankees organization about the fan had been published as of Thursday morning. Boone, Volpe and Judge did speak about the call, and MLB’s statement is the only official written statement on the ruling identified.
The accounts of who made the call differ. The AP names replay umpire Malachi Moore in MLB’s Replay Center, while ESPN and MLB.com describe a crew chief’s review, and ESPN says crew chief Dan Bellino announced it to the crowd. No report reconciles the two. The official rulebook text was not checked; the rule wording above is as CBS Sports printed it.