The Boston Red Sox couldn’t pull off the sweep of the New York Yankees on Thursday, but it wasn’t Rich Hill’s fault.
The left-hander started off a little shaky, giving up a home run to Carlos Beltran and allowing another run after walking two batters in the second inning, but Hill was able to pull himself together after that. Plus, he did things like this.
[tweet https://twitter.com/RedSox/status/649745558815444993 align=’center’]
The 35-year-old ended the night with two runs on four hits with six strikeouts and three walks, giving his team a solid chance to catch up. But they didn’t.
Boston’s offense got on base, but it was touching home plate they had a problem with in the 4-1 loss. Mookie Betts provided the Red Sox’s lone score with an RBI single, but otherwise, the club was 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position and left eight men on base.
The loss snapped Boston’s win streak at six games and gave the Yankees a wild-card spot, as well as their 10,000th franchise win.
Here are some more notes from Thursday’s loss.
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— Hill will be a free agent this offseason, and he put on quite the show for potential suitors. In four starts, Hill went 2-1 with a 1.55 ERA, 36 strikeouts and just five walks. And he thinks he did enough to prove he deserves a spot in a major league rotation.
“One-hundred percent,” Hill said, per the Boston Herald’s Scott Lauber. “If you look at the overall body of work, there was a lot to build off of from there and looking forward to next year. If anybody goes out there and looks at those four games, it’s four quality starts. That speaks for itself.”
— Mookie Betts was the one bright spot in Boston’s offense, and he continues to prove his worth. Betts went 2-for-4 with the Red Sox’s lone RBI and put up some pretty impressive numbers throughout the series.
The outfielder batted .421 (8-for-19) with four runs, three doubles, three home runs, and five RBIs through four games against the Yankees. He also was about a foot short of another home run Thursday.
— Betts wasn’t the only youngster to show up during the series, though. The Red Sox hit nine home runs through the first three games, all by players aged 25 or younger.
Out of Betts, Travis Shaw, Deven Marrero and Jackie Bradley Jr., Betts was the only one of them who started his season in the major leagues.
— There’s a possibility David Ortiz is done for the season. The designated hitter wasn’t in Thursday’s lineup, and Red Sox interim manager Torey Lovullo said he’d be used sparingly, if at all, during Boston’s series against the Cleveland Indians.
“The body is tired,” Lovullo said, via Lauber. “He’s had a really, really good season. And I don’t want to put him in a situation where he’s going to run up against an injury, out of fairness to him. He played through a lot of days off in that little run that he was on. Chasing 500 home runs was bigger than any day off for me, and I just wanted to make sure the medical team would sign off on it. David wanted to play, and just kept playing him through those days. So he deserves this time down.”
— Former Red Sox starter and free agent Justin Masterson underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder Wednesday and expects to be ready by spring training, per ESPN.com. Whether or not teams are interested in Masterson after his injury-riddled career, however, is another story.
— With the loss Thursday, the best the Red Sox can finish is at an even .500. They’ll have to sweep Cleveland to do so.
Thumbnail photo via Jeff Griffith/USA TODAY Sports Images
