Ceddanne Rafaela’s walk-off home run for the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday afternoon could have occurred at only one place: Fenway Park.
And that’s not hyperbole.
Rafaela hit what looked like a harmless fly ball down the right field off Angels lefty reliever Brock Burke with the game tied in the bottom of the ninth inning. But given the unique dimensions of the venerable ballpark, Rafaela’s hit surprisingly tucked inside Pesky’s Pole. Rafaela’s two-run homer traveled a mere 308 feet but still produced the desired result for the Red Sox, giving them a much-needed 11-9 win.
The round-tripper for Rafaela, which was his fourth in the last seven games after going 26 consecutive games without a homer, proved to be a statistical oddity. It wouldn’t have been a home run in any of the other 29 big-league ballparks and was the shortest homer by a Red Sox player at Fenway in the Statcast era. It also marked the shortest walk-off home run in all of MLB during the Statcast era.
“I was really happy, because we grinded today,” Rafaela told reporters, per The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey. “To win this game was huge for us.”
Those in the Red Sox dugout had a tough time deciphering if Rafaela had just won them the game since it’s difficult to see into the right-field corner from their vantage point.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters following the game that the team usually yells, “Pesky,” when a ball is hit in that direction. And after seeing so many balls go on the wrong side of Pesky’s Pole, the Red Sox could celebrate their screams coming to fruition.
“Usually, it’s way foul and we’re just searching for something,” Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran told reporters, per The Boston Globe’s Tim Healey. “But that time it actually worked.”