The Red Sox beat the Yankees 1-0 in New York on Friday night. Max Fried gave up four hits and zero runs in six innings, but the Yankees offense disappeared as they dropped the second game of the weekend series to their rivals.

Boston was already up 1-0 when Jarren Duran led off the top of the ninth with a walk and then stole second. Ceddanne Rafaela then hit a hard groundball to shortstop Anthony Volpe who thought he caught Duran leaning towards third, but replay showed he had turned to watch Volpe field the ball and headed back to second in time to beat a throw to Jazz Chisholm Jr.

Duran was safe and Chisholm threw it to first too late to get an out there either. Fans were perplexed by Volpe's decision.

Asked about the play after the game, Boone defended his shortstop's decision as "heady."

"It's obviously not the right play, but I mean, it's a little bit of a heady play too," said Boone. "He almost caught a guy off in scoring position there and then he doesn't come around to score anyway. Makes a really good play on the contact play. I mean are we really going to dive into that one a lot? I mean, I get it. He wasn't out, but it's kind of a heads up, you know, almost got a guy. Napping. And really if Duran doesn't affect the throw where he's getting back Jazz still might complete the play so you know, not the right play probably, but in some ways a heads up play too."

Boone is right that Volpe almost got him and Duran didn't score so what's the big deal? However, Boone has developed a reputation for being too forgiving of Volpe's brand of baseball and hearing an MLB manager say the wrong play was kind of right because it almost worked might is just odd.

After Friday's game the Red Sox have pulled back ahead of the Yankees by a half-game in the AL East and currently lead in the Wild Card standings.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Aaron Boone Defends Anthony Volpe’s Latest Head-Scratching Play as 'Heads Up'.

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