BOSTON — With the bases loaded in the top of the third, Raimel Tapia hit a harmless fly ball and Fenway Park exhaled. Then chaos broke out.
Red Sox center fielder Jarren Duran came in to make the catch, but then, just as you looked away from your TV, the ball landed 30 feet behind him. He had lost the ball in the sky, and as Fenway Park collectively gasped, Tapia turned on the jets.
By the time the Red Sox got the ball back in the infield, Tapia was racing around third and diving for an inside-the-park grand slam, striking a Superman pose as his teammates pushed him.
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. had perhaps the best reading of the entire play. As he walked home from third base, he looked back at his teammates and flexed his arm like a third base coach sending in a runner. It seemed strange at the time, but it all made sense when the baseball landed near the warning track.
The wild moment was the Blue Jays’ first inside-the-park homer since Ezequiel Carrera on May 6, 2017. It’s also the first inside-the-park grand slam since the Nationals’ Michael A. Taylor hit it on September 8, 2017, and just the second in Blue Jays history stretching all the way back to June 2, 1989, when Junior Felix did it right here in Boston.
Tapia’s heroics put the Blue Jays up 10-0, capping a seven-run inning.
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