In what is shocking news to some people, David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox came out and publicly disapproved of teammate Ryan Dempster hitting New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez on Sunday night. Some would say that Dempster throwing at Rodriguez turned the game around. Prior to hitting A-Rod, the Red Sox lead 2-0. After the incident, the Yankees would tie the game at 2.

Boston would then take the lead back and go up 6-3, Rodriguez lead off the 6th inning with a solo home run off Dempster that propelled the Yankees to score three more runs in the inning to take a 7-6 lead and eventually win the game 9-6. “I didn’t like it, I don’t think it was the right thing to do,” Ortiz told USA TODAY Sports. He would also add, “But we all don’t think alike, but the guy who did it, Dempster, is a great guy.”

Clearly, Dempster woke up a sleeping giant in that Yankees team. The support by Yankees manager Joe Girardi and the rest of the team was overwhelming and a little bit surprising to some. Girardi would be ejected for arguing that Dempster wasn’t thrown out of the game. Dempster threw the first pitch behind A-Rod’s knees, followed by two pitches inside and finally ending with Dempster drilling A-Rod in the elbow.

Ortiz would also go on to say, “It’s not that I didn’t think it was right because Alex and I are friends, because once you cross the white lines everyone’s on their own. But we’ve got Tampa right on our heels and that pitch woke up a monster in that Yankees’ team at that moment.” The Red Sox currently hold a one game lead in the American League East over the Tampa Bay Rays.

For all those who know a little bit about history and PED’s in baseball, this situation is a little bit ironic. It was reported back in 2003 that David Ortiz was one of 100 players who had failed a drug test before the new testing policy was put in place. Ortiz vehemently denied that he ever used performance enhancing drugs and it’s still never mentioned to this day. Now he’s publicly backing Rodriguez, it’s actually irony at its finest.

Finally, the Yankees are 10-3 since A-Rod returned to the lineup and are now only four games behind the Orioles for the second American League wild card berth. They also have seven games remaining against the Orioles, seven against the Red Sox and six against the Rays. The AL East and wild card races are heating up and making for an exciting final month of the season. If the Yankees make the playoffs, we may all look back to that Sunday night in Boston as the night that turned it all around.