The Red Sox walk off a classic of wackiness — Jayson Stark’s (extra) Weird and Wild, ALDS Game 3

Normally, it’s the duty of the October Weird and Wild column to recap every game that unfolds before our eyes, from lunch to midnight, here in Division Series week. But sorry. Not today!

Today, much like crew chief Sam Holbrook, we’re invoking little-known Item 20 in the Weird and Wild Postseason Rules Manual, to impose martial law. Which holds, and we’re quoting from the manual now:

If a fair ball not in flight is deflected by a fielder on the flat screen in our TV room and causes a thousand friends around America to text us furiously, asking, “What the heck just happened?” we are hereby authorized to ignore our usual procedure and just write about that game. Especially if it goes 13 innings and ends with an epic walk-off home run.

So it’s simple, friends. It’s just flat-out in the manual. We regret to announce that because Game 3 of Red Sox-Rays on Sunday got so extra weird and so extra wild, we’re just going to have to get to the Weirdness and Wildness of Astros-White Sox some other day.

You have no idea how difficult this is for us, given the wackiness of that game and its important place in García Versus García history. But we have a Fenway classic on our hands.

So this will be a column about Red Sox 6, Rays 4, in 13 riveting innings. It will not be a column about whatever it was that went on after Kevin Kiermaier’s 13th-inning rocket clattered off the right-field fence, caromed off Hunter Renfroe’s hip and landed in Sam Holbrook’s rules manual.

Who thought up that rule? When was it written — in 1882? Is it a rule that makes no sense, or is it just a rule that lacks common sense? These are important questions. But luckily, Ken Rosenthal is in charge of answering them.

Here at Weird and Wild World HQ, we’re in charge of all the other amazing stuff that went on at Fenway over more than five hours of must-watch baseball Sunday. From leadoff homers to walk-off homers, we’ve got this covered. If only it was as simple to round up all these fun facts as it was for those umpires to consult their handy manual.

1. Christian Vázquez just did the walk of life

This is how legends are born. Extra-inning walk-off homers floating in the night. Fenway Park erupting. That classic October chill in the air.

This was a moment Christian Vázquez will be remembered for forever, because home runs like these never stop flying — not as long as we care about these games and the history they write.

So what kind of history did Vázquez write, with the 13th-inning walk-off that decided this remarkable baseball game? The Weird and Wild column exists to answer questions like that.

THERE MUST BE A CATCH — Seven other catchers have hit a walk-off home run in postseason history. We remember them all — but especially the four listed below. These are the only four other catchers ever to hit an extra-inning postseason walk-off.

Only the Red Sox have now hit two home runs like that. Only Vázquez and Peña (who entered in the 11th) experienced those walk-off goosebumps in games they didn’t even start. So that is one cool club Vázquez just joined.

LUCKY 13 — Just five other men who ever played baseball have hit a walk-off home run in the 13th inning or later of any MLB postseason game. I can picture every one of these in my mind’s eye. See if you can, too.

Don’t ask me why catchers have now hit half of the home runs that make this list, considering how much squatting was involved before they hit them. Maybe they just wanted to go home.

NO HISTORY LIKE FENWAY HISTORY — Imagine knocking Carlton Fisk and David Ortíz out of the Fenway record book. It almost feels wrong. But Vázquez did that anyway Sunday night — by hitting the latest October Fenway walk-off homer ever hit. Behold the only three Fenway postseason walk-offs ever launched in the 12th inning or later.

HEY YAZ, SEE WHAT YOU MISSED? — And finally, just for fun, why don’t we take a moment to reflect on some of the Red Sox greats who never got to do what Christian Vázquez did Sunday.

Most career Red Sox HR, never hit a Fenway postseason walk-off

Amazingly enough, none of those 10 ever hit a postseason walk-off anything at Fenway. Not a single. Not a double. Not a triple. Not a sac fly or a fielder’s choice or any other kind of walk-off. But Christian Vázquez did. Boy, did he ever.

2. Pivetta in the Nick of time

You know another way October legends are born? Watch those bullpen gates open. Tie game. Extra innings. Pulses racing. Season’s on the line.

Then behold the magic and the emotion of players you don’t normally find on the mound in moments like that, in innings with double digits. And appreciate every zero they hung on the scoreboard.

Maybe Nick Pivetta will never again do what he did at Fenway in the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th innings Sunday night. Maybe it was just one of those mystical events that unlikely people sometimes get mixed up in this time of year.

Or maybe this was life-changing. Maybe this was career-changing. We have no way of knowing yet. But those four heart-pounding innings of shutout relief he threw Sunday sure felt as though they were season-changing. Certainly for him. And very possibly for a Red Sox team that needed every one of those 67 pressure-packed pitches he threw.

Pivetta, said his manager, Alex Cora, “did an amazing job for us.”

So why might those four amazing shutout innings live on in Red Sox lore for decades? Here’s why:

Winning pitcher, threw 4+ IP of postseason relief for Red Sox, 0 runs, 7+ K

But now let’s add in the key qualifier here: Extra innings. Only four pitchers in history have ever spun at least four innings of shutout relief — all of them beginning in the ninth inning or later — and emerged as the winning pitcher in any postseason game, for any team. How ’bout this foursome?

For the moment, let’s suspend all debate about That Rule and how, if it had been written differently once upon a time, Pivetta wouldn’t have gotten to join either of these groups. What he did for his team Sunday, in a critical moment in time, was spectacular.

3. I almost forgot about all this!

You know what tends to happen when two teams play baseball for five hours and 14 raucous minutes? You lose track of the time. You lose track of where you are. You lose track of what day is, what meal you’re due to eat next and possibly even who are these other people in the room with you.

But you also tend to lose track of stuff that happens along the way. And that’s another reason the Weird and Wild column exists. We take notes! So just to refresh your memory …

WANDER FRANCO’S TRIFECTA — Has anyone mentioned lately that Wander Franco is 20 years old? To watch him play baseball for the Rays, you’d never know it. This is the first postseason series of his life. He got two hits in Game 1. He got two more hits in Game 2. He got two more hits Sunday in Game 3. C’mon. Seriously?

He’s the first rookie of any age to start his postseason career with three multi-hit games in a row since Chuck Knoblauch in 1991. He’s the first 20-year-old ever to do that. But he also added his name to this fantastic list.

3 multi-hit games in a postseason series before turning 21*

Special note for all you Juan Soto fans — he’d have been part of this group himself except for one thing: He celebrated his 21st birthday in the middle of the 2019 World Series.

FRANCO’S WANDROUS HOMER — Oh, and there would have been no extra-inning drama Sunday without one more Wander Franco swing of the bat. He dug in to lead off the eighth inning … and did this.

Wander Franco is a young, dynamic star. pic.twitter.com/wfuD20IFbn

— Britt Ghiroli (@Britt_Ghiroli) October 10, 2021

Did you know that home run made him the youngest visiting player to hit a postseason homer at Fenway by nearly three years? (The previous record-holder was Evan Longoria, at age 23.) And only four players younger than Franco have ever hit a postseason homer in any park:

THAT FIRST INNING! — In the top of the first inning, Austin Meadows homered for the Rays. In the bottom of the first inning, Kyle Schwarber hit a leadoff homer for the Red Sox. What’s the big deal about that?

Well, this is the 25th season with postseason baseball at Fenway Park. Would you believe this was the first time in any of those postseasons that both teams hit a first-inning homer in any game at Fenway?

SPEAKING OF SCHWARBER — With that leadoff bomb into the Monster Seats, Schwarber got to go on this funky list of Red Sox who have kicked off any postseason game with a leadoff homer. Thanks to Doug (Kernels) Kern for the research:

PARADE OF THE LEADOFF MEN — In other leadoff news, Schwarber had no idea, when he thumped that leadoff homer, what he was really starting. From that point on, the Red Sox led off each of the first six innings with a hit. Perhaps you thought, as that leadoff parade kept marching: I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.

Hey, good call! Thanks to MLB.com’s No. 1 supplier of voluminous info, Sarah Langs, for running that question past the Elias Sports Bureau — which reported that the Red Sox were the first team in history to start the first six innings of any postseason game with a hit.

After which, naturally, they didn’t lead off any more innings with a hit … because baseball!

EOVALDI’S TRIP TO K MART — For many hours Sunday, it looked like Nathan Eovaldi was going to be the most memorable pitcher of this day for the Red Sox. And one reason for that was: Just in his first two innings on the mound, he’d already piled up six strikeouts.

He should know that only two other American Leaguers in history have racked up six whiffs in the first two innings of any postseason game (another h/t to Doug Kern):

Orlando Hernández, Game 3, 2000 World Series
Jim Palmer, Game 1, 1973 ALCS

Oh, and we can also add this to our Weird and Wild Stuff Happens in October files: Eovaldi has made 201 regular-season starts in his career. Guess how many times, in all those regular-season starts, he has struck out six in the first two innings. Of course, that would be none!

4. Kiké‘s hot bat hit machine

Before he ever arrived in Boston, Kiké Hernández played in 14 postseason series in his previous life as a Dodger. You know how many times he got seven hits (or more) in any of those 14 other series?

How about never?

But of course, that was before he joined the Red Sox and became the hottest October hitter who ever lived. How hot is he? Here’s how hot:

THE STREAK: This same dude who had never gotten seven hits in any previous series just went out, in the last two games of this series, and got a hit in seven plate appearances in a row. Only one other man has ever done that in the same series: Billy Hatcher, for the Reds, in the first two games of the 1990 World Series.

SPECIAL WEIRD AND WILD RECORD COMMITTEE BULLETIN: Technically speaking, Derek Jeter also once got hits in seven postseason plate appearances in a row. But in actual life, he did that over two years, in 2005-06. So by the powers vested in the Weird and Wild column, we’re ruling: Not the same thing!

THE EIGHT-BALL: Also over these last two games, Kiké Hernández has gone 8 for 12, with five extra-base hits. Who else has done that over any two consecutive games in any postseason series, you ask? Correct answer: No one!

KIKÉ BALL GAME: Finally, I know this isn’t a path I should travel just for the sake of compiling one last goofy little note. But I’m traveling that path anyway, even though I would admit under oath that I know this comparison isn’t remotely “fair.” So here goes:

• Ted Williams — five postseason hits in his career
• Kiké Hernández — eight postseason hits in two games

So how the heck is that even possible?

Baseball! (In two very different centuries!)

(Photo of Vázquez: Billie Weiss / Boston Red Sox / Getty Images)