BOSTON – After a five-hour, 14-minute, back-and-forth battle between the American League’s top-seeded Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox, who secured a wild-card berth on the final day of the regular season, crew chief Sam Holbrook sat in the interview room at Fenway Park on Sunday and read from the umpire’s manual. Which was maybe the last in a long list of indicators that Boston’s 6-4 walk-off win in ALDS Game 3 would be talked about for years to come.
“It's item 20 in the manual, which is, balls deflected out of play, which is in reference to official baseball Rule 5.