NEW YORK — Former Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo took 32 seconds to run the bases after he homered to tie the game in the third inning of the Yankees’ 14-4 win over Boston on Saturday at Yankee Stadium.
It was Verdugo’s longest home run trot this season. His average home run trot time is 27.6 seconds.
Did the Red Sox — who traded Verdugo to New York in December for reliever Greg Weissert and pitching prospects Richard Fitts and Nicholas Judice — take exception to it?
“No, man,” manager Alex Cora said. “I’ve seen that slow trot for us and we didn’t care, right? We let him do it. So if we were OK with it on on our team, we should be OK with it on another team. They should be OK, too, with Raffy (Devers) doing what he did.”
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Devers flipped his bat and celebrated his 441-foot go-ahead homer in the fifth.
“At this point, it really doesn’t matter,” Cora said. “We saw it last year with the Dodgers.”
Cora is referring to Verdugo celebrating his two homers last year against the Dodgers, his team before Boston.
Was Devers’ larger-than-usual celebration a form of retaliation after Verdugo did what he did?
“Obviously I’m not that kind of hitter but obviously it was a big hit for us. We put my team on top at that moment,” Devers said through translator Carlos Villoria Benítez. “At the same time, they did it to us before. Nobody can get mad for those reactions. It’s just baseball.”
Verdugo has four of the five longest home run trots by a Yankees player this season.
Josh Winckowski gave up the homer to Verdugo.
“I’m not too worried about it,” Winckowski said about Verdugo’s trot. “He rides the roller coaster a bunch so that’s what he does.”
