BOSTON — It was the kind of expert curveball that can make a pitcher a lot of money. It left Nathan Eovaldi’s fingertips just so, bent through the air and landed in Christian Vázquez’s glove. It crossed home plate perhaps exactly as Eovaldi intended it to, on the outside edge, dotting the upper, far corner of the strike zone.
That is how it looked to Eovaldi, who was pitching in relief, and to Red Sox Manager Alex Cora, to most of the Red Sox players and perhaps millions of their fans.
But the most important man saw it differently.