The moves the Tampa Bay Rays made late in their game against the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday may have been unorthodox and resulted in mass confusion, but they were perfectly legal. As such, the Red Sox opted to not file an official protest following the 3-2 loss.
Alex Speier of The Boston Globe reported on Thursday that the Red Sox declined to file an official protest with Major League Baseball within the 24-hour window they had to do so. That means the protest has been dropped, whether Alex Cora and his team are still irritated over what happened or not.
Cora said after the game that he believes some “illegal substitutions” were made by the Rays, but the Red Sox manager was wrong. The Rays moved a bunch of players around to strategically get the pitching matchups they wanted, and we explained to you in great detail here why it was all legal.
If the Red Sox had filed a protest, it would have been denied. The umpiring crew even seemed confused by what the Rays were doing and had to delay the game for quite a while, but they didn’t break any rules.
