After ripping a solo home run off Masahiro Tanaka in the ninth, Napoli celebrated in front of Boston’s dugout. He can be heard exclaiming “What an idiot!” to his teammates in reference to Tanaka’s decision to throw the fastball that sealed the Yankees’ fate.

Tanaka knew exactly how he wanted to handle Napoli. The Yankees ace was throwing a fastball, no matter what catcher Brian McCann called for.

So after twice shaking off McCann, Tanaka stuck with his plan — and threw precisely the kind of pitch the Boston slugger hoped to see.

“It was the worst thing I could’ve possibly done,” Tanaka said through a translator.

Napoli hadn’t had much success earlier in the taut pitchers’ duel, striking out in his previous two at-bats. He was down 1-2 in the count before lining an opposite-field drive into the first row of the seats in right.

“He had me where he wanted me,” Napoli said. “I was just looking for something up in the zone.”

Tanaka wanted to take a different approach than McCann.

“He asked for a splitter and for a slider, and I shook off both of them,” Tanaka said.

Tanaka said he intended to throw a fastball out of the strike zone to set up a breaking ball. Instead, Napoli hit it out of the park.

Napoli, who also homered off Tanaka at Fenway Park in late April, raised his right arm as he rounded first base and headed toward a dugout celebration.

Tanaka, the top winner in the majors and the AL ERA leader, turned to watch the ball sail, twisting his body when it cleared the wall.

Napoli’s third home run in five games, and 10th shot overall, flew far enough reach the short porch.

“Power hitters are going to have the ability to hit to all fields. We all know that right field here is not very forgiving,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said. “Last night, they hit one in the first row. Tonight, we did.”

The Red Sox won for just the third time in nine games. The victory made the defending World Series champions 37-44 at the midpoint of the season — it’s the first time since 1997 that Boston has been under .500 at the halfway mark.

Source: NJ.com