Phillies fan favorite Ranger Suarez sunk by 'self-pity' after brutal Ceddanne Rafaela call

It was tough to watch homegrown southpaw Ranger Suárez have to walk away in free agency this past offseason, as many Philadelphia Phillies fans can agree. With too many starters (isn't that a pleasant oxymoron you don't hear very often), the need to retain power in the lineup, and a catcher hole, the Phillies chose to bring back designated hitter Kyle Schwarber and veteran backstop J.T. Realmuto instead.

Which lead "Mr. Ranger Danger" to the free agent market where, after some deliberations among many teams, the Boston Red Sox chose to offer him a five-year $130 million deal after losing out on their offseason Plan A, Alex Bregman.

After almost a full season in Beantown, however, Red Sox fans have not gotten to know and love the same lefty who, oftentimes, felt like the heartbeat of the Phillies' rotation and sometimes the team at large. With a rocky start to his tenure, Suárez finally started to settle in and looked like himself by June, but then got sidelined with a groin injury, which led him to miss his second All-Star appearance in his past three seasons.

And Sunday's 16-1 loss against the New York Yankees showed a new low for our boy. After the wheels fell off in the fifth inning, anyone watching, especially those who know Suárez's type of play, probably couldn't find his "happy-go-lucky" attitude on the mound. This massive loss to the Yankees, which decided the tiebreaker between these two division rivals locked in a tight race for the AL Wild Card, went to the Yankees, and the loss was definitively handed to Suárez.

Ranger's implosion, however, was not entirely at the hands of his sinker or his change-up. After escaping the first inning with a double play, Suárez continued to deal into the fifth inning, where he initially gave up an infield single to Yankees utilityman Jose Caballero (thanks to a ball that rolled up and out of Trevor Story's glove). Then, when Jazz Chisholm Jr. dug into the box, Suárez's luck finally ran out.

First base umpire's miscue leads to an annual Ranger Suárez implosion, and the strife was all over his face

Chisholm Jr. took a first-pitch strike, then hit what many assumed to be a gapper between right and center field, but Platinum Glove candidate Ceddanne Rafaela managed to not only make it over to where the ball was, but absolutely successfully made a diving, behind-his-back catch on Chisholm Jr.'s line drive.

After an "unsuccessful challenge" ruled by MLB's Edwin Moscoso, the Red Sox went from what they thought was going to be an eight-three double play to now having runners on first and second with no outs. After that missed call from Moscoso, Suárez tried to shake it off, but immediately gave up a sacrifice bunt and a soft grounder, right up the middle, to Paul Goldschmidt, putting the Yankees up 2-0.

After those two runs, which arguably shouldn't have been on the board, Suárez truly fell apart. Immediately after the two-run skidder from Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger hit a single, moving Goldie to second. Heliot Ramos, who came over at the trade deadline, dug in and mashed a 416-foot home run, where you could just tell Suárez was gassed. Before he let the pitch go, Yankees announcer David Cone noted that he may be feeling "a little self-pity right now," providing the Yanks with a prime opportunity. He wasn't wrong.

You have to wonder whether Suárez staying in Philadelphia would have made these struggles at the beginning of the season and post-All-Star injury less prominent. With the Red Sox medical staff having been rough in the past few years, with several of their key players needing to miss significant time due to injury, could Boston's faulty medical staff be partially to blame for the decline in Suárez's performance? We may never know, but all we can hope is to see flashes of the Ranger we knew whenever he takes the mound for the Red Sox. Perhaps when they clinch a Wild Card berth, Boston fans will truly get to know the rager behind Ranger.

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