This kid looks like such a goofball when he runs, but I guess there's no reason to mess with success. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Henry Owens took the mound against the New York Mets at Citi Field on Friday night. The Mets, meanwhile, brought out the first of three high-caliber starters the Red Sox will face over the weekend: Matt Harvey. That name scared me a lot more before his Tommy John surgery, but he’s been excellent this year nonetheless (2.48 ERA, 0.99 WHIP).
He lived up to his statistical billing last night, tossing six scoreless innings and leaving with a 2-0 lead. He allowed only two runners to reach second base. Sandoval made it there with one out in the first after walking and advancing on a Xander Bogaerts single, but the inning ended anticlimactically on a weak David Ortiz double play ball back to the pitcher, 1-6-3.
Jackie Bradley, Jr. also made it to second base in rather unorthodox fashion: he struck out swinging with two outs in the 5th, but the curveball that fooled him was a wild pitch that got past catcher Travis d’Arnaud, and Bradley reached at first easily. He stole second with Owens at the plate for the second time, and the big goofy lefty actually managed to work the count full before striking out on an awkward swing to end the inning. By the time Harvey departed after 6, he’d struck out 8, including Swihart and Bogaerts twice each.
As good as Harvey was, Owens was pretty effective himself, doing more than enough to keep Boston in the game. It’s not like he suddenly developed pinpoint control or anything (he walked a batter in each of the first four innings), and his pitch count suffered accordingly: by the time he came out after 5 innings, he’d thrown 108 pitches. But he missed enough bats to avoid any real trouble.
In the bottom of the 4th, the Mets broke the scoreless tie. Wilmer Flores doubled to left with 1 out and d’Arnaud singled to center. Mookie Betts had a good chance to throw Flores out at home, and Swihart was understandably upset when Bogaerts cut off the throw – Flores stumbled through a “stop” signal from third base coach Tim Teufel and could’ve been tagged out on a decent throw. 1-0, Mets.
Owens gave up another run in the 5th, but it was very unearned. After giving up a two-out single to David Wright, the lefty gave up another single to right field by Michael Cuddyer. It should have been relatively harmless, but instead, a run scored because Rusney Castillo, despite apparently carefully looking the ball into his glove, allowed it to scoot underneath it. Wright came all the way around from first and Cuddyer got all the way to third. Ortiz actually made a decent throw home, acting as the cutoff man on the infield grass, but Swihart left the ball behind as he went to make the tag on Wright. 2-0, Mets.
The much-maligned Heath Hembree came in for Owens in the bottom of the 6th, giving up only a single to bring his ERA down to 5.40. Harvey’s replacement, however, did not fare quite as well. Big Papi hit a solo shot on Logan Verrett’s very first pitch, using an inside-out swing to power it out to left-center and cut the lead in half. It was the 493rd homer of Ortiz’s career, tying him with Lou Gehrig.
Verrett has been very good for the Mets, to the tune of a 1.93 ERA. But after Brock Holt flew out and Castillo struck out, Swihart singled into right field to keep the inning alive and stole second for good measure with Bradley at the plate. Bradley made Verrett pay two pitches after the steal, sending a home run of his own to nearly the exact same area in left-center that Ortiz had targeted. 3-2, Red Sox.
Unfortunately, the lead didn’t hold. After Lovullo brought in Robbie Ross, Jr. in the top of the 7th to get lefty Curtis Granderson, Alexi Ogando replaced Ross. This quickly became something of an ordeal. Cespedes walked, Wright singled, and Cuddyer walked before Ogando got Flores to pop out to Holt at second. But before Jean Machi came in to get the Sox out of the inning, Ogando also walked d’Arnaud to bring in the tying run for the Mets. 3-3, all tied up.
The Sox went 1-2-3 in the 8th, which was bad enough, but Pablo Sandoval was ejected after arguing that a ball he hit that settled directly in front of home plate was actually a foul ball. He was right, it was 100% a foul ball, but he was called out after d’Arnaud tagged him and ejected quickly after objecting.
Josh Rutledge came in to play second base after Panda’s ejection, pushing Holt over to third. Travis Shaw also came into the game, replacing Ortiz at first. Machi stayed in and gave the Sox a (fairly surprising) clean inning. Jeurys Familia took the 9th for the Mets, putting Shaw, Holt, and Castillo down in order. And Tommy Layne pitched the bottom of the 9th for Boston, giving up a leadoff walk to Yoenis Cespedes but took advantage of a double play, Bogaerts to Rutledge to Shaw, to move the game to extra innings.
Once again, the first pitch thrown by a Mets reliever was taken deep – kind of. Blake Swihart hit an outside fastball by Carlos Torres to straightaway center field for an inside-the-park home run to give the Red Sox a 4-3 lead.
If you watch closely, it turns out that it was actually an outside-the-park home run. But with no need for a review, it stands as an inside-the-park job for the speedy catcher.
From there, the wheels came off for Torres. Bradley singled, Betts doubled, and Rutledge hit a sacrifice fly to right field to score Bradley and advance Betts to third. 5-3, Red Sox. The next batter, Xander Bogaerts, took the first pitch he saw from Torres over Cespedes’ head in left to score Betts and pad the lead. 6-3, Boston.
A 3-run lead means a save situation, so Junichi Tazawa came in for another opportunity in Koji Uehara’s stead. He gave up a single to the leadoff man, Flores, but started a double play himself to get the inning’s first two outs, waiting patiently and delivering a decent enough throw to Bogaerts to get it started. Unfortunately, the quick grab and motion back to second appeared to have tweaked Junichi’s upper body, and the Taz we got for the remainder of the 10th was bad Taz.
He walked Ruben Tejada on four pitches, then walked Michael Conforto after getting ahead in the count 0-2. He then threw three straight balls to Juan Uribe, came back to work the count full and…walked him to load the bases. And finally, he gave his fourth consecutive walk to Curtis Granderson, bringing Tejada in from third to narrow the lead to 6-4. At this point, Tovullo had seen enough and brought in Craig Breslow for a rare save opportunity. Yoenis Cespedes drove a Breslow changeup to deep center field, but Mookie Betts made the catch to end the game. 6-4, final.
Sorry for the magnum opus. And for posting this halfway through today’s game. Life, you know?
