YES and Michael Kay give angry Yankees fans an outlet over Max Fried's stolen no-no

Every New York Yankees fan has a right to be upset at the Tampa Bay Rays official scorer after Sunday, without question. Bill Matthews, the man in question, was watching Yankees starter Max Fried navigate his way through a no-hitter in the final third of the game, on the mound to pitch in the eighth inning. That's when the official scorer deemed it appropriate to look back at the sixth inning and change an error on Paul Goldschmidt to a hit for Chandler Simpson, thus ending the no-hitter.

Changing the call in and of itself was a questionable decision at best. There would've at least been a close play at the bag had Goldschmidt fielded the ball cleanly instead of booting it with his glove. However, to make that change roughly two innings later is just asinine, especially in the midst of a no-hitter bid.

While that frustration from fans is justified, the last thing that you'd want anyone to do is to give the official scorer more grief for doing his job and making a difficult decision. Yet, YES Network and lead broadcaster Michael Kay went the other way with that.

Following the scoring change, YES found Matthews on camera and zoomed in close on him, giving Yankees fans the target for their ire over the lost no-no bid from Fried.

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YES Network and Michael Kay immediately exposed Rays scorer for stealing Max Fried's no-hitter

Even in the post above with the screen grab from the YES Network broadcast, you're already seeing Yankees fans going after Matthews for his role in ending the no-hitter.

Regardless of whether or not you believe, Yankees fan or not, that Matthews made the right decision, this is a perfect example of how not to handle such a situation from YES and Kay. This man is probably already going through it for ultimately ruining Fried's chance at making history. The last thing he or anyone else should want is to make him some sort of baseball pariah over this.

Putting the normally nondescript Matthews squarely in the middle of the camera frame does just that, however. It's the broadcast's job at all times to keep the fan at home informed but also to keep them levelheaded. Creating targets and "enemies" because of a less-than-ideal moment is counterproductive and frankly bad for the game of baseball. It's not at all what you want to see.

While I still venture to say that Matthews might've had it right the first time by calling the now-hit an error, let's hope that the Rays scorer comes out of this okay. Let's also hope that Kay and YES Network as a whole do better the next time they have an opportunity to not make a situation worse than it already is.