Anthony Rizzo stepped up to the plate in a critical moment during a rough stretch for the Yankees. Aaron Judge had just singled, giving the team a shot at building some momentum. Rizzo, facing Rays lefty Ryan Yarbrough, looked fired up but also had to deal with Yarbrough’s funky delivery coming from an angle behind him. After adjusting his stance and hammering the dirt around home plate with his bat, Rizzo took a pitch off his leg. Normally, he gets those free bases because of his fearless, close approach to the plate. This time, the ump said no, ruling that Rizzo didn’t try to get out of the way.
Rizzo argued his case, throwing out plenty of frustration. Boone came out to get an explanation, and the ump said he saw movement toward the pitch. Rizzo insisted he thought it was going behind him and tried to move away, but the replay didn’t help his case. The breaking ball came from behind his body line and broke into his leg. In slow motion, it looked like he leaned into it, even if his intention was the opposite. The bigger issue is this call almost never gets made on leg hit-by-pitches. Usually, it comes up with elbows hanging over the plate.
Rizzo stayed in the box but struck out a few pitches later, slamming his helmet multiple times in the dugout. He kept venting, shouting to no one in particular where exactly he was supposed to go when the ball starts behind him. The Yankees are in a bad stretch, and so is Rizzo, so the tension was already high. Getting denied a free base on a borderline call didn’t help. The moment summed up a lot of recent frustrations for both Rizzo and the team.