Show of hands: Entering Monday’s game, who had Rick Porcello as the Boston Red Sox’s most important offensive contributor?
Of course, such a belief would have been nonsense in the first place, but coupled with the fact that the Sox were facing Washington Nationals ace Max Scherzer, such a notion would’ve bordered the line of lunacy.
But there it was, the Nats intentionally walked Jackie Bradley Jr. to load the bases and get to Porcello, and he responded by launching a ball to deep left field on an 0-2 count to empty the bases. Given the Red Sox ultimately won 4-3, it’s clear how important the double was to the eventual result of the game, in addition to the mere two runs he allowed over six innings on the mound.
After the game, both Porcello and Sox manager Alex Cora had plenty to offer. For the Sox skipper, he knew Porcello’s well-documented competitive edge would take over.
“I mean, I always believe that if there’s somebody in the batter’s box with a bat, they always have a chance,” Cora said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “Pitchers are going to make mistakes, you’re going to put a good swing on it, run into something.
“One thing about Rick and you guys know it, he’ll compete,” Cora added. “Even in the second at-bat I told him just take three pitches and he couldn’t help himself to take three pitches. But I’m very happy with the performance, obviously with the swing, put us ahead. … That was outstanding.”
The whole moment appeared to be a bit of a blur for Porcello, who struggled to fight back chuckles as he explained the ordeal.
“I wish I had a lot to say about that but I don’t really know what happened,” Porcello said. “Obviously I know he’s got a big fastball and I just got lucky. He got to the top of his windup and I told myself start swinging and I hit it.
“I almost missed first base, so that was the first thing,” the righty added. “I got onto second base and it kind of set in that we scored, scored three runs, which for this game was huge. I don’t know it was just a cool moment, I was pretty excited.”
Porcello has known and been friends with Scherzer for quite some time. So would embarrassing his friend put some strain on the relationship?
“I don’t know, we’ll see in a couple minutes.”
Here are some other notes from Monday’s Red Sox-Nationals game:
— It may be time to start getting a little concerned about Joe Kelly’s recent performances.
Since the start of June, Kelly has pitched 9 1/3 innings and allowed 12 hits, 10 runs (nine earned), with eight walks, as many strikeouts and three home runs.
Despite those numbers, Cora isn’t abandoning the high-leverage reliever he often uses against lefties.
“No, I mean he’s our lefty (guy),” Cora said. “We’ll keep working with him, one thing that he needs to do better is tempo. I think his tempo is going the other way instead of being more aggressive, and just grab the ball and throw it. So we’ll talk to him.
“I think that helps,” Cora continued in regards to tempo. “When you’ve got a guy throwing 97-98 and he’s ready to throw the ball, hitters don’t like that. So we’ll get back to that one.”
— When facing as good a pitcher as Scherzer, the Sox were well aware that their offensive prowess was going to be tested.
But throughout the game, they did a fine job working deep into counts and putting together good at-bats, something that pleased Cora.
“That was impressive, that was very good,” Cora said of his squad’s hitting approach. “Good swings, even (Rafael Devers), he had nothing to show but he had great at-bats. Brock (Holt) had some good ones, Mitch (Moreland) two-strike hits. All around very good at-bats against a tough guy. … He was ready to grind it out with us and we were ready for him.”
