There’s an old saying from Tim Kurkjian that baseball is a unique game because “If you go to the stadium every night, you might see something you’ve never seen before.”
For the numerous fans who filled Citizens Bank Park on Monday night to watch the Philadelphia Phillies face the Boston Red Sox, this was certainly true.
After nine innings, the game was tied 2-2, leading to extra innings. The Phillies stepped up to bat in the bottom of the 10th, hoping to keep the Red Sox scoreless and please the home crowd.
They achieved this in the most unexpected manner.
The inning began with Brandon Marsh on second as the “ghost runner.” After Boston’s Jordan Hicks walked Otto Kemp, his first pitch to Max Kepler was a slider that got past catcher Carlos Narvaez, allowing both Marsh and Kemp to advance.
Boston then intentionally walked Kepler to load the bases for Edmund Sosa, who had replaced Bryson Stott earlier in the game.
That’s when things took a turn:
Sosa appeared to swing at the pitch, then signaled to home plate umpire Quinn Wolcott and Narvaez. Replay showed that Sosa’s bat hit Narvaez’s catcher’s mitt.
The play was reviewed, and the ruling was announced: Catcher’s Interference. This allowed Sosa to take first base, advanced the runners, and counted Marsh as the winning run.
As noted by MLB.com, this was the first walk-off catcher’s interference since August 1, 1971, when the Los Angeles Dodgers faced the Cincinnati Reds. In that game, Dodgers outfielder Willie Crawford was called for interference against Johnny Bench to conclude the match.
But consider what else was at play in this Phillies-Red Sox matchup. The “ghost” runners concept, introduced in the 2020 season, not only affected scores but the entire scenario unfolded under the video review rules that began in 2014.
So, we witnessed a walk-off catcher’s interference play involving an automatic runner, confirmed by a video review.
As Kurkjian noted years ago, we truly have never seen anything like this.
