The New York Yankees capped off a strange series against the Tampa Bay Rays with an even stranger 4-0 win — a game that had just about everything you don’t expect to see in a shutout.
For seven innings, Max Fried had a no-hitter going. But it wasn’t exactly clean. His defense committed three errors behind him, yet Fried kept mowing down Rays hitters. Then, just before he could throw a pitch in the eighth, the no-hitter disappeared — not because of a batter reaching, but because of a scoring change. A sixth-inning ground ball originally ruled an error on Paul Goldschmidt was changed to a hit, officially wiping away Fried’s bid for history.
After the game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone weighed in on the situation, admitting he thought the first true hit came in the eighth inning with a leadoff single. “I saw afterward that they had changed it,” Boone said, via ESPN. “Look, we’re not going to beat him to the bag, so I get it, but it makes it a little bit dicey when it’s within the game — or obviously with a no-hitter going on. But the reality is it was a hit.”
Boone didn’t stop there, adding some pointed commentary about the consistency — or lack thereof — of official scoring across MLB ballparks. “I scratch my head at the official scorers nightly,” he said. “They throw an error up on the board at Yankee Stadium, and then we go to these other places and they can fire up a hit with the best of them. It’s a different game in every other park.”
The oddities didn’t end with the no-hitter drama. Boone, who had been ejected earlier in the game, wasn’t on the field when another controversy flared up: an Aaron Judge fly ball that initially looked like a home run in the eighth. It was ruled foul on the field, and even after a replay review that showed video evidence appearing to favor Judge, the call stood. Boone didn’t hold back his frustration, blasting the umpiring crew afterward for what he saw as a major miss.
Despite all the chaos, the Yankees got the job done. They took three of four from the Rays — and did it in Tampa Bay’s own spring training facility. It was a bizarre series that ended with a wild game, but at the end of the day, it’s another series win in the books for the Bombers.
Next up: a trip to Cleveland for a three-game set against the Guardians, where the Yankees will look to keep the momentum rolling — hopefully with a little less drama.
