Kyle Hart still is trying to find his way in the big leagues, and Tuesday likely didn’t go a long way in building his confidence.
The 27-year-old rookie pitcher entered the Boston Red Sox’s game with the Atlanta Braves in the seventh inning. He was tasked with keeping Boston in the game, as it only trailed 4-2 at the time, but by the time he finished his two innings of work, Boston was down 10-2.
Ultimately, the Sox would lose 10-3.
Hart’s final line was an unsightly six runs allowed, all earned, on seven hits with one strikeout and a pair of homers allowed — two dingers to Marcell Ozuna.
It was just Hart’s fourth big league appearance, and his first in relief. He was the fifth pitcher the Red Sox used in the game, and as he continued to get shelled it was hard not to wonder why he was still in the game.
Basically, Sox manager Ron Roenicke explained after the loss, they didn’t have much of a choice.
“We had a few guys down today, and that’s why Kyle was in that game,’ Roenicke told reporters over Zoom. “We need length from him, and he can certainly give us length.
“To try to figure out the pieces, it’s hard because we’re using these guys a lot and we know we can’t keep using them so much. So I make sure that we go over before the game who’s down that night and we had a few guys down again tonight. So we knew we had length in Kyle and we knew we were going to use him somewhere and that’s what we had when we got to that point.”
Indeed, the Red Sox bullpen is in a tough spot. With Nathan Eovaldi on the injured list, Martin Perez is left as the team’s only designed starter available, and he was dealing with a blister on his finger during his last outing.
Relievers already had to eat a bunch of innings, but recent circumstances has exacerbated that issue.
Thumbnail photo via Paul Rutherford/USA TODAY Sports Images
