There are blowouts, and then there are games where you start wondering if someone accidentally left the difficulty setting on “Beginner.”

That was the Yankees on Sunday.

New York demolished Boston 16-1 at Yankee Stadium, taking three of four games in the series and, perhaps more importantly, securing the season-series tiebreaker.

But before the Yankees turned the afternoon into batting practice, there was the call.

In the fifth inning, Red Sox center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela appeared to make a diving catch on a sinking liner from Jazz Chisholm Jr. Rafaela popped up and threw toward first, clearly believing he had made the play. Instead, first-base umpire Edwin Moscoso ruled that Rafaela had trapped the ball.

Boston challenged.

Replay reviewed it.

And the call stood.

The red Sox’s weren’t exactly thrilled. The Red Sox argued that Rafaela caught the ball cleanly, while the umpires determined there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn the original ruling.

Then things got ugly at least from Boston’s perspective.

The Yankees scored five runs in the inning and never really looked back. Austin Wells eventually launched two homers, Paul Goldschmidt added some damage, Heliot Ramos hit his first homer as a Yankee, and New York finished with a ridiculous 31 hits over the final two games of the series.

Was the call controversial? Absolutely.

Did it change the game? Probably not.

But by the time the Yankees were finished scoring, Boston probably didn’t care whether the ball was caught, trapped, or mailed to Fenway.

It was a great afternoon for baseball.

And for Yankees fans? Well, sometimes baseball is beautiful.
Especially when the Red Sox are the ones having the bad day am I wrong?