BOSTON -- Pesky Pole homers are rare as it is. There are maybe a handful of them each season. The man the pole is named after – the late Johnny Pesky -- hit all of six home runs at Fenway Park in his career, and there’s no official record of how many of them were hit into that odd corner that is 302 feet from home plate.
However, Trevor Story’s Pesky special -- which helped the Red Sox to a 6-4 victory over the Guardians in Monday’s matinee at Fenway Park -- might go into a quirky class all of its own.
Confusion dominated when Story’s fly ball down the line in the bottom of the sixth inning was pursued by Guardians right fielder Jhonkensy Noel. As Noel reached over the short wall to try to catch it, the ball hit his glove, clanged off the pole, hit his glove a second time and then hit a fan.
The initial call on the field was a foul ball. As the umpiring crew huddled and discussed it, Story stayed at second base, perhaps thinking it was a ground-rule double.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora then called for a review, and Story was rewarded with his 23rd homer of the season.
Give an assist to replay coordinator Mike Brenly, who has secured his share of clutch overturns for Boston this season.
“Brenly was the one that saw the whole thing,” said Cora. “We screamed Pesky [from the dugout] and kind of took off [trying to see it], and then they had the call, and [bench coach] Ramon [Vázquez] called Mikey, and he was like, ‘We have to challenge this one’. And we did.”
When the Red Sox got the call they were looking for, Vázquez held out the dugout phone and other coaches yelled into it, celebrating an important moment in a pennant race.
With the win, Boston is 77-62 and just 2 1/2 games behind the Blue Jays in the American League East. This is the closest Cora’s team has been to first place since May 11.
“It's exciting,” said Story. “We were talking about it earlier today. It's September 1, and these are the types of games we want to be playing. It's the meaningful ones, and chasing down a division. And we accept that challenge, so we feel really confident in the group that we have.”
Some good fortune never hurts for a contender this time of year.
The replay official determined it was a home run, as announced on NESN, because “all relevant angles showed the ball definitively struck the foul pole prior to the fielder demonstrating firm and secure possession.”
“I was trying to catch the ball, and I felt like I ran into a kid,” Noel said. "I had it in my glove. But then when I hit the kid, that's when I felt the ball come out of the glove. How tough is this outfield. I got a little upset about that play, because I know, ‘OK, maybe the ruling was that way.’ But I don’t think it should have been a homer. Maybe a double because of the situation, but not a homer.”
Story wasn’t sure either, at least until he saw the visual evidence.
“Yeah, I thought maybe a ground-rule double at first, because I saw him touch it fair and then it kind of hopped out foul, was what I thought at first,” Story said. “But obviously it hopped out of his glove and touched the pole. Just a tricky one for sure, but glad it worked out. “
Story hit the ball at an exit velocity of just 94.5-mph per Statcast at a projected distance of 306 feet.
As you might have guessed, it would not have been a home run in the other 29 MLB parks.
Since Statcast started tracking home run distance in 2015, Story’s 306-footer was the second shortest since Lorenzo Cain’s 302-foot homer for the Royals on July 29, 2017. That one was also down the right-field line at Fenway.
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt hit one in that general area that measured at 307 feet in 2019. While he enjoyed his good fortune on that day, he empathized with Noel on this occasion.
“That wall, unless you're used to running out a wall like that, it's a low wall with some weird angles,” Vogt said. “It's hard, because you're running full speed. But he got the ball into his glove, it just didn't go our way. I've never really seen one tip off onto the foul pole. But that's what this park does, you see some weird plays.”