An Umpire Opened the Door and the Astros Walked Right Through
The New York Times
With two outs in the ninth, Nathan Eovaldi thought he had a strike three. Laz Diaz disagreed and by the time the dust settled, Houston had scored seven runs, tying the series.
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. To Laz Diaz, the home plate umpire working Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, the pitch was high (it certainly was not wide, because the overhead replay view showed the ball clearly traveled over home plate).
