Rafael Devers and the Red Sox had the perfect initial response to Alex Verdugo’s pronounced bat flip and slow jog around the bases following their former teammate’s two-run homer in Saturday’s third inning.
Even if Verdugo and the Yankees got the last laugh in a 14-4 victory at the Stadium.
Devers ripped a homer of his own to give Boston a lead one frame later, and he certainly appeared to gesture toward Verdugo in left field as he took his time rounding the bases.
Devers claimed afterward that his raised arms as he passed second base instead were meant as an intended celebration with his teammates in the bullpen.
“Obviously it was a big hit for us, it put my team on top at that moment. At the same time, they did it to us before. So nobody can get mad for those reactions. It’s just baseball,” Devers said after the game through a translator. “It wasn’t directed at [Verdugo]. It was something that we do towards the bullpen. Everybody who hits a home run, they salute the bullpen, so it wasn’t anything to do with him.”
In his first game back at Fenway Park in June following an offseason trade to The Bronx, Verdugo also had enjoyed a strong game with a home run and four RBIs.
Featuring a pronounced bat flip, he took 32 seconds to round the bases Saturday following his two-run blast to center off Boston starter Josh Winckowski.
“I’m not too worried about it. He rides the roller coaster a bunch, and that’s what he does,” Winckowski said of Verdugo.
“I’ve seen that slow trot for us and we didn’t care, right? We let him do it here,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora added. “If we were OK with it on our team, we should be OK with it on another team.
“And they should be OK, too, with Raffy doing it.”
Cora actually thought another at-bat by Verdugo — a bunt single in the Yanks’ five-run fifth — “changed the game.”
Devers’ 440-foot blast — his eighth homer in 39 career at-bats against Yankees starter Gerrit Cole — had changed it first, giving Boston a 4-3 lead one inning earlier.
Cole glared at Devers as he passed first base, but the reigning AL Cy Young winner said afterward, “as a pitcher you don’t want to watch a home-run trot, but then you probably shouldn’t give up a home run.”
