'It was like Twister' — strange play at third sees Red Sox' Devers tied up in a knot

BOSTON — Trevor Larnach fielded Xander Bogaerts' sixth-inning single cleanly as it ricocheted off the left-field wall, and fired it to Gio Urshela as Rafael Devers rounded second base and sprinted toward third. The throw was a few feet off the base, but easily got there before Devers.

But the crafty baserunner had no intention of being tagged out.

"You never know when you'll get a chance like that," Devers said.

True, you never know when you'll have a chance to semi-roll onto your side toward the far end of the bag, left arm splayed away from the fielder, then slide past the bag and sprawl toward it with your right arm, somehow impossibly avoiding two lunging tags by the fielder.

"We were playing — what's the game with spots on the floor? — Twister," Urshela said in disbelief after the game. "It was like Twister."

The Twins challenged the call, figuring that Urshela's glove must have glanced off Devers at some point during the crazy play.

"It was body parts lying all around, on both sides," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "You just hope that one body part whacked into another one at the right time."

Replay confirmed, however, what Urshela already knew.

"I didn't think I got him," the third baseman said. "I tried to, but I knew I didn't touch him."

The play ended Dylan Bundy's day and handed Boston a prime scoring opportunity. But when Joe Smith took the mound, Devers provided another unusual play, taking several steps toward home plate on J.D. Martinez's sharp grounder to Miguel Sano. The first baseman whipped the ball to Urshela as Devers scrambled back, and after three more throws, the Twins finally tagged him out.

"I was just trying to be aggressive," Devers said of his crazy trip around the bases. "My goal was to score any way I could, but I didn't get that far."

As hard as it's tried to put COVID-19 in the past, baseball is still being affected by the virus.

Red Sox catcher Kevin Plawecki tested positive for coronavirus on Monday, as did two members of the team's non-coaching staff. Plawecki, who contracted the virus despite being vaccinated, left Fenway Park shortly before Monday's game began, and the Red Sox placed him on the COVID list, which requires the player to be away from the team for 10 days or until he tests negative on two consecutive PCR tests.

Plawecki played in Sunday's game against the Twins, going 0-for-3 with a sacrifice fly. Players on the Mets, Mariners and A's have also recently tested positive.

MLB no longer routinely conducts team-wide COVID tests, but only administers tests when a player shows symptoms of the virus. But the Red Sox are affected by more than just Plawecki's positive test; manager Alex Cora revealed Sunday that "multiple" Red Sox players are not vaccinated and will not be allowed into Canada next week when the team travels to Toronto for a three-game series with the Blue Jays. Tanner Houck, who earned the victory against the Twins on Saturday, is among them, Cora said.

That's a hurdle that the Twins, who have not commented on their players' vaccination status, will not face for a few weeks. Minnesota's lone visit to Toronto is June 3-5.