It has nearly been nine years since Rick Porcello made his debut at Fenway Park.
And boy was it a memorable one.
A then-20-year-old Tigers rookie, Porcello found himself in the midst of a contentious series between Detroit and his current team, the Boston Red Sox.
With family and friends in attendance, Porcello was given orders to hit a Red Sox batter after Miguel Cabrera was beaned twice in as many games. After running one upstairs on Victor Martinez and missing, the right-hander was ready to move on. Instead, he inadvertently plunked Kevin Youkilis the following inning.
The then-Sox third baseman — who already had been hit multiple times that season — charged the mound, threw his helmet at Porcello and a melee ensued.
Porcello detailed the ordeal to The Boston Globe’s Stan Grossfeld.
“I missed (Martinez) but sent the message,” Porcello said. “I go back out there (for the second inning) and Youkilis is the first hitter coming up. First (expletive) pitch. I was trying to throw a strike. And it just took off on me, ran up and in and hit him. It was completely unintentional.”
The two since have caught up, and they got a bit more of an understanding of one another.
“Youkilis told me he was pissed because he had been getting hit a ton and nobody basically had his back,” Porcello says. “One of their guys had told him, ‘Well, that’s not our job. You’ve got to go out there and basically charge the mound and then everyone will stop hitting you.’
“I was the guy he chose to charge.”
It certainly was a nice “Welcome to the big show” type moment for Porcello, who said he really did not want to fight, but had no choice. But hey, it made for quite the conversation piece when he joined Boston in 2015.
