Rich Hill deals in the rain. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
The Sox fell in a rain-soaked affair on Thursday night in New York. Given the forecast and the extra-inning game last night, manager Torey Lovullo gave most of his starters the night off. Let’s just say the lineup was, uh, not the Red Sox’ best.
- Betts
- Bradley
- Bogaerts
- Shaw
- Castillo
- Craig
- Marrero
- Leon
- Rutledge
For those of you keeping score at home, that’s only two (2) players who played the whole season with the big club. Predictably, there weren’t any offensive fireworks. The Red Sox were held to one run on seven singles by a washed up C.C. Sabathia, and sometimes-starter sometimes-reliever Adam Warren.
Two of those hits came off the bat of Markus Lynn Betts, one of which was an RBI single, accounting for Boston’s only run. It was a great at-bat by Mookie. After falling behind 1-2, he laid off of a changeup in the dirt. C.C. then tried to double up on the changeups, and Betts was ready for it, lining it into centerfield.
Mookie also had a homer taken away from him in the 7th by the wind and the rain. Hit it about as far as you can to left field in Yankee stadium without it going out — the wind and rain clearly knocked it down. He’s really dialed in and is now hitting .297 for the year. During the game NESN flashed an interesting stat, courtesy of Alex Speier:
Betts and Bogaerts have the opportunity to be the first pair of teammates aged 22 or younger to hit .300 since 1939.
Pretty cool. Just another reminder that the future is bright in Boston.
Surprise ace Rich Hill toed the rubber for the Red Sox and pitched well, but wasn’t dominant as we’ve come to expect. His only bad inning was the second, when his breaking ball wasn’t the widow-maker we know and love, and he left a couple of fastballs up in the zone.
Outside of that, he was pretty sharp
but thanks to the 37-pitch second inning, Rich was only able to go six.
| Pitchers | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | PC-ST | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hill (L, 2-1) | 6.0 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 102-67 | 1.55 |
The Yankees got to the bullpen for a pair of runs, and the Sox would lose by a final score of 4-1.
Notes:
-In the bottom of the 4th, Rusney uncorked an absolutely incredible throw from right to hold a runner at third. He caught a routine fly ball in right field, so it wasn’t that it was a really long throw, it was just functionally and aesthetically perfect. Catch slightly over right shoulder, quick transfer, and uncork an absolute seed, on a line, hip-high to the catcher.
-In the top of the 5th, the broadcast cut to a suspicious-looking NYPD officer sporting an orange rain slicker. I don’t know what he was doing out there but it seems like he was kind of in the way…
The Yankees’ Brendan Ryan obviously thought Jean was far from the best, because he threw his bat at Jean while trying to make contact on a hit-and-run in the 6th.