Francisco Lindor crushes grand slam after Yankees botch strike three challenge
To the surprise of every baseball fan, the Yankees hammered Indians ace Corey Kluber for six runs in 2 2/3 innings in Game 2 of the ALDS on Friday (GameTracker). Gary Sanchez and Aaron Hicks both took Kluber deep.
The Yankees took an 8-3 lead into the sixth inning when all hell break loose. With Yankees ace reliever Chad Green laboring, pinch-hitter Lonnie Chisenhall took a fastball to his hands to load the bases with two outs for the Indians. Or so it appeared.
Sanchez immediately pointed out the ball hit the knob of the bat. Chisenhall didn't react either. Usually a fastball to the hand equals pain, but Chisenhall expressed zero anguish.
Here's the pitch:
Lonnie Chisenhall foul tip that should have been called strike three. No challenge by Girardi, horrible call pic.twitter.com/H6025WqtVo — Ideal Mkai (@Mkai__) October 7, 2017
That should have been a foul tip strike three to end the inning, strand two runners, and preserve New York's 8-3 lead. The home plate umpire called it a hit-by-pitch and hey, I don't blame him. It's easy to think that was a pitch to the hand.
Hit-by-pitches are, of course, reviewable. Here's the rule:
Hit by pitch: Calls involving whether a pitched ball may have hit a player, a piece of his clothing or his bat. Whether the ball was in the strike zone when it touched the batter and whether the batter made any attempt to avoid being touched by the ball is not be reviewable.
The key phrase there is "or his bat." Had the Yankees and manager Joe Girardi reviewed the Chisenhall hit-by-pitch, it would've been overturned and called a foul tip strike three to end the inning. Instead, the Yankees never reviewed it, and you know what happened next:
The non-challenge on the would-be inning-ending strikeout extended the inning and allowed Francisco Lindor to hit the huge grand slam that turned an 8-3 game into an 8-7 game. In the eighth, Jay Bruce took David Robertson deep to tie the game 8-8.
Here are some quick numbers on the turn of events:
Yankees win probability had strike three been called: 97.3 percent
97.3 percent Yankees win probability after the hit-by-pitch: 93.2 percent
93.2 percent Yankees win probability after the grand slam: 68.4 percent
Basically a 30 percentage point swing in win probability between the non-strike three challenge and grand slam, which is massive.
Keep in mind teams have two challenges in the postseason, not one. And the Yankees still did not use one and what would've been an inning-ending strikeout. Wild.