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Lowe hit a fly ball to deep right field and Nathan Lukes gave chase. The Jays’ right fielder leapt at the wall but couldn’t make the catch, but that was because the right arm of a fan sitting in the bleachers got in his way.

Centre-fielder Myles Straw immediately looked into the Jays’ dugout asking for a replay review and the high foreheads in New York got together to look at it and came up with an explanation that defied belief.

Laz Diaz, the umpire crew chief, relayed the message from the replay centre, telling the crowd that yes, there was fan interference, but “it would have been a home run anyway” so the call on the field听鈥� home run听鈥� stood.

Of course, there can be no interference on a ball that “would have been a home run anyway.”

The replay officials later explained, according to an email read by Jays’ television broadcaster Dan Shulman, that they could not definitively determine that the ball would not have left the field of play even if the fan hadn’t interfered with Lukes, who appeared to have the ball headed right for his glove.

Such are the vagaries, unfortunately, of playing significant late-season games in a minor-league stadium, the Rays having been forced out of Tropicana Field because hurricane damage left their home ballpark unusable. There was no camera angle that clearly showed the fan reached out and not over, and that the ball was still over the field of play when he interfered.

The good news for the Jays and their fans is that it didn’t wind up mattering, despite a shaky bottom of the ninth.

The 4-0 lead built over the first two innings against a previously-untouchable Ryan Pepiot held, and the Jays extended it with solo home runs by Lukes and Joey Loperfido, and excepting an eighth-inning blip by Brendon Little, the bullpen shut things down over the final five innings.

Pepiot, the Rays’ starter, came into the game on a three-start shutout streak in which he’d allowed just two hits over 15 innings and the Jays matched those two hits in the top of the first, a George Springer single eventually scoring on an Addison Barger single.

The right-hander walked the bases loaded to begin the second and the Jays cashed all three runners with a two-run single by Springer, who had three hits on the night and an RBI single by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

The controversial home run was the only damage against Berr铆os, but the right-hander lasted only four innings, throwing 78 pitches to get a dozen outs, and did not strike out a batter for the first time since a 12-1 loss in Arizona on July 13, 2024.

Jeff Hoffman did not start the ninth inning, despite it being a save situation, but he came in with one on and one out and, with a clearly diminished fastball, put the tying and go-ahead runs on with a single and a walk but struck out Josh Lowe and Jake Mangum to close it out for his 31st save.