The Red Sox are still ahead 1-0 after four innings in Tropicana Field despite one incredibly frustrating fourth inning.
What made that fourth so frustrating? We'll start in the top, when the Red Sox led off with a David Ortiz walk and Mike Napoli single. Daniel Nava worked a very long at bat before hitting a sacrifice fly, allowing Ortiz to move over to third, bringing Jarrod Saltalamacchia to the plate, needing only to put the ball in play to at least give Ortiz some chance to cross the plate. Instead, he struck out, and Stephen Drew grounded back to Alex Cobb to end the inning.
Then came the bottom of the inning, and the Trop showing off its most...unique of features.
Ben Zobrist was up to bat. Ben Zobrist fell behind. Ben Zobrist popped up to right field, probably in a fashion that would leave the ball in the stands anyways, but just to highlight how silly Tampa Bay complaints about Fenway were, the catwalk got involved, leaving the ball dead.
No big deal, right? A pop foul that wouldn't have produced an out is no reason to get upset. And it's not. What is a good reason is Ben Zobrist proceeding to take a clear strike for ball two, then popping straight up over home plate only to hit the catwalk again! This time the implication was clear: an out had been changed to a meaningless foul ball. An out that eluded Buchholz as another strike was called a ball, with Zobrist finally drawing the walk.
The inning would get much more dangerous from there, with James Loney singling and Desmond Jennings walking to load the bases. Thankfully for the Red Sox, the controversial baserunner would not come back to haunt them, at least not in the fourth, as Buchholz got Matt Joyce swinging at strike three to send the game to the fifth.