Red Sox OF's blunder turns into inside-the-park grand slam

There is nothing worse than seeing your MLB team's outfielder lose a routine fly ball in the lights. Actually, wait. It can get worse.

The bases could be loaded.

The Boston Red Sox saw what should have been a simply flyout turn into bedlam on Friday against the Toronto Blue Jays, when center fielder Jarren Duran responded to a fly ball from Raimel Tapia with the kind of confused stare fans dread to see.

The ball was so clearly an out that Tapia paused to hang his head before jogging toward first base, but Duran appeared to completely lose it in the lights. As he tentatively hopped forward, Duran could only look back and see the ball at the warning track behind him.

Duran didn't even bother running to the wall to get the ball, as left fielder Alex Verdugo ran to corral the ball. Unfortunately, the misplay gave the speedy Tapia enough time for an inside-the-park grand slam.

Per MLB.com's Sarah Langs, that's the first inside-the-park grand slam since Michael A. Taylor's on Sept. 8, 2017 for the Washington Nationals.

At the time, the Red Sox were down 6-0 in the third inning with two outs and the bases loaded. Duran's misplay, which incidentally doesn't count as an error because balls lost in the lights or suns are typically counted as hits, pushed the deficit to 10-0.

By the middle of the fourth inning, Red Sox would be down 14-0, but at least broke the shutout with some runs in the bottom of the inning.

Going off Statcast numbers, Tapia's fly ball only had an 18 percent chance of being a hit despite reaching the warning track. Instead, it turned into his fifth homer of the season, his first with the Blue Jays.

This isn't the first fly ball to get lost in the lights at Fenway Park this month, as Christian Arroyo did something similar on an even easier fly ball against the New York Yankees. In that case, though, Arroyo was playing his first dozen or so games as an outfielder. Duran has less of an excuse, having regularly played in the outfield since he was drafted in 2018.

This article originally appeared on Yahoo Sports at https://sports.yahoo.com/red-sox-jarren-duran-blunder-raimel-tapia-inside-the-park-grand-slam-011105644.html