Trevor Story helped swing the Boston Red Sox to a Labor Day win over the Cleveland Guardians, but his 23rd home run of the season was hardly a soaring shot.
Up by two in the sixth inning, Story hit a solo homer off Guardians relief pitcher Jakob Junis to extend Boston’s lead. It took a review to declare the narrowest of home runs that couldn’t happen anywhere but Fenway Park.
The ball careened down the right-field line, appearing to fall out of Jhonkensy Noel’s glove and hit the Pesky Pole as the defender charged into the wall. Umpires initially deemed it a foul ball before Boston challenged.
Story stood at second base during the replay, perhaps thinking the call would get overturned to a ground-rule double. The 32-year-old instead got to touch them all after the review determined the ball struck the foul pole before Noel’s glove.
Take a look at Story’s wild home run, via NESN on X:
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Courtesy of MassLive’s Christopher Smith, Story’s 306-foot fly ball marks the shortest non-inside-the-park home run ever at Fenway Park. Ceddanne Rafaela sent a ball 308 feet for a walk-off home run in June that wouldn’t have left any other MLB stadium.
According to Statcast data, nine batted balls traveled farther than Story’s home run during Monday’s game. Statcast estimated that it’s only a home run at Fenway Park, assigning a .010 expected batting average.
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Story told NESN’s Jahmai Webster after the game that manager Alex Cora often encourages them to take advantage of their home park’s atypical measurements.
“We take aim at it a lot, and rarely do we hit it,” Story said of the Pesky Pole. “So it was fun to do that.”
The Guardians may argue that it shouldn’t have been a home run at Fenway Park either, but the favorable review gave the Red Sox an additional insurance run. They closed out a 6-4 victory behind 14 hits, three from Story.
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Boston will look to stay in the win column when Garrett Crochet takes the mound against Cleveland on Tuesday at 6:45 p.m. ET.
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