Either he’s snakebit, or someone found a way to have a raincloud perpetually above him like in a Peanuts cartoon strip.
Kiermaier had a golden opportunity to give his Tampa Bay Rays a win in their best-of-five American League Divisional Series against the Boston Red Sox. Instead he fell victim to pinball and geometry.
In the top of the 13th inning of Game Three, with the series tied 1-1, Kiermaier hit a rope towards the short wall in right field at Fenway Park. The ball hit the turf, deflected off Red Sox’ right fielder Hunter Renfroe and over the wall. The play was ruled a ground-rule double, which prevented Yandy Diaz from scoring all the way from first base.
Boston walked off in the bottom half of the inning on a two-run blast by Christian Vasquez. Boston’s catcher came on in the sixth inning, going 1-for-3. The home run was the first pitch he saw in the at bat.
Now the Red Sox have a chance to put away the AL’s top team with a win Monday night at Fenway. With their run to the AL pennant last season, many are back on the Rays’ bandwagon to get back to the Fall Classic at the end of the month. Tampa was the only American League team to top the 100-win mark in 2021, hitting the number right on the nose.
The only other two to eclipse the same level are the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers (106) and their hated rivals, the San Francisco Giants (107).
Let’s be honest...Randy Arozarena might be the most exciting player in the playoffs the past two years. You should be ashamed not to want to see as much of him as you can in the postseason. This is the one player I wish John Mozeliak had not let slip through the fingers of my beloved St. Louis Cardinals after the 2019 season. Arozarena even stole home in Game One of this series.
Getting back to Kiermaier, this is the second controversial play he has been a part of in just the past two weeks. With the AL’s East Division still not clinched, the Rays were hosting the Toronto Blue Jays on September 24. The Jays were still right in the thick of the Wild Card race. Kiermayer slid into home on a close play, where Toronto catcher Alejandro Kirk had his signal card fall out of his wristband and into the dirt surrounding the batter’s box. Kiermayer picked up the card and discretely passed it off to field coordinator Paul Hoover in the Tampa dugout.
Kiermaier did not open the card to see what he picked up, but Hoover clearly knew what he was being handed. The following day, Kiermaier was drilled right in the back with his team leading 7-1 in the eight inning. Tampa ended up winning by the same score, clinching the division in the process.
Toronto reliever Ryan Borucki and manager Charlie Montoyo ended up being suspended as a result of the blatant retaliation. Toronto was eliminated on the final day of the regular season.
Kiermaier hit .259 during the regular season, with four home runs and 39 RBIs in 122 games. Last night was his first hit of the series in 11 plate appearances, although he has drawn a pair of walks. The Rays would gladly trade one of those walks--or his four strikeouts--for that right field wall at Fenway to be about two feet higher.
All six umpires agreed with the call on the field, even after replay. The unluckiest break for Kiermaier was the ball hitting the turf. I can tell you first hand just how much that can benefit a team, as I was there on May 26, 1993 when the ball bounced off Jose Canseco’s head for a home run at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
-JC24