If you’re a Yankees fan, you might want to cover your eyes for this one. Thursday night in the Bronx, what looked like your everyday, garden-variety double play turned into a full-blown blooper reel—and it happened fast.
Top of the second inning. Red Sox center fielder Cedanne Rafaela chops one right back to the mound. Yankees starter Luis Gil does his job—fields it clean, spins, and delivers to second. Easy, right? Cue the collapse.
Jazz Chisholm takes the toss, steps on the bag for the force, and then uncorks a throw so wild it didn’t just miss first base, it sailed into the camera booth down the line. Fans gasped, broadcasters groaned, and the baseball gods chuckled.
Announcer Couldn’t Believe It
Fox’s Joe Davis summed it up perfectly in real time. “This one he makes the play on,” Davis said with a lift in his voice, before his tone crashed like the throw itself: “To second for one, and … to the seats.” Pain.
Rafaela, meanwhile, was loving it. He advanced to second on the overthrow, swiped third for good measure, and then trotted home after another Yankee miscue—this time a throwing error by catcher Ben Rice. That’s right, two errors on one sequence, and suddenly Boston was on the board.
Now, credit where it’s due—the Yankees didn’t fold. They bounced back and grabbed a 2-1 lead heading into the fifth inning, showing at least a little fight after what could’ve been a soul-crushing defensive meltdown.
Still, plays like this are the kind that haunt highlight reels for all the wrong reasons. What should’ve been an easy double play was instead a comedy of errors that handed the Sox momentum on a silver platter. And in a rivalry like Yankees-Red Sox, those little moments? They stick.
If New York wants to steady the ship, they’ll need to shake this one off quickly. Because the last thing you want is a September push defined by “the throw to the camera booth.”
