Story erupts, Cora ejected in chaotic, ABS-fueled extra-inning Red Sox loss to Reds

Gabrielle Starr, Boston Herald on Mar 28, 2026

Published in Baseball

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CINCINNATI – On Opening Day, Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora said Major League Baseball introducing the ABS challenge system was going to be “interesting.”

He had no idea how interesting the series was about to get.

ABS fueled Saturday’s 6-5 extra-inning Red Sox loss to the Cincinnati Reds going from bad to worse. Boston ran out of challenges by the third inning and as a result, were felled by home-plate umpiring from CB Bucknor so egregious it led to an eruption by the usually-stoic Trevor Story, and subsequent ejection for the intervening Cora.

More patient, the Reds waited until the bottom of the sixth to request a challenge, and proceeded to go a perfect 6 for 6 before the end of regulation.

Almost forgotten in the late- and extra-inning chaos was Sonny Gray’s difficult Red Sox debut hours earlier.

Neither Gray nor Reds starter Brady Singer pitched into the fifth inning. Gray needed 35 pitches to get through a seven-batter, two-run first inning. He walked off the mound after four, charged with three earned runs and one unearned on six hits, one walk and five strikeouts. He threw 80 pitches, 51 for strikes.

Story’s second-inning error added another run to Cincinnati’s lead, but the veteran shortstop answered back in the following inning, with the first Red Sox home run of the year.

Boston’s two failed challenges first loomed large in the fourth, when they pulled within a run on three consecutive two-out singles and a wild pitch, only for Story to strike out looking on a pitch that ABS would have immediately overturned.

The dearth of ABS challenges reared its head again in the bottom of the sixth when Red Sox Rule 5 pick Ryan Watson entered for his MLB debut and the Reds had runners on first and second with two outs. Watson should’ve had an immediate inning-ending strikeout by his fourth pitch, but without the ability to challenge, issued a bases-loading walk on the seventh pitch.

Watson held the Reds scoreless in the seventh and eighth, too, though not before the home team successfully challenged twice in the former.

Meanwhile, the challenge-less Red Sox could do nothing about several overturn-able pitches, and by the top of the eighth the situation reached a boiling point. Bucknor missed two clear balls in Marcelo Mayer’s leadoff strikeout-looking. But it was Story’s checked-swing, deemed a swinging strike two by Bucknor, and subsequent inning-ending strikeout to strand two runners, that led to the shortstop’s Vesuvian outburst.

The Boston bullpen counteracted Bucknor as best it could. After Greg Weissert gave up a leadoff home run to Elly De La Cruz in the fifth, Red Sox relievers combined for five scoreless innings and the game remained within reach.

Two strikes away from defeat, Wilyer Abreu turned a splitter from closer Emilio Pagán into a game-tying home run and created a bottom of the ninth for Red Sox closer Aroldis Chapman.

Reds players were already bursting out of the dugout to celebrate a walk-off home run when the ball Spencer Steer hit landed in Roman Anthony’s glove instead of the left-field stands.

Celebration would have to wait, but it came eventually in the 11th, on a walk-off RBI single by Dane Myers.

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