The last time Nathan Eovaldi took the mound at Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox starting pitcher turned in a historically bad outing.
But back on the same mound again Sunday afternoon in a thrilling series finale victory over the Seattle Mariners, Eovaldi was much, much sharper to put together a dazzling performance in which he recorded a career-best 11 strikeouts, including the 1,000th punch-out of his career.
Eovaldi’s well-documented troubles with giving up the long ball this season weren’t completely eradicated, but definitely curtailed as he looked the part of an ace over his 6 2/3 innings of work. He allowed just four hits, one of them a two-run home run by Adam Frazier in the top of the sixth, and two earned runs while walking one in a no-decision.
Eovaldi had Seattle’s attack baffled for the majority of his outing, and for him, it was more about keeping his approach simple, like throwing 19 first-pitch strikes to the 25 batters he faced, than trying to overcomplicate matters to produce a star showing.
“I got back to kind of the basics for me of just sticking the heaters down and away, but making sure I’m getting them down in the zone,” Eovaldi said, as seen on NESN postgame coverage. “I’ve been trying to get the first-pitch strikes. The way they came out swinging against Garrett (Whitlock) yesterday, attacking the first pitch, I knew that I needed to make sure almost treating it like an 0-1, 0-2 count. Make sure I’m sticking down in the zone, and using the other off-speed pitches more.”
Eovaldi certainly utilized his secondary pitches on a more regular basis against the Mariners so they couldn’t sit back on his fastball.
Eovaldi threw his splitter 27.7 percent of the time in his 101-pitch outing and fanned seven Seattle batters with the pitch. Eovaldi said he usually saves his splitter for when he goes through the lineup a second time, but showcased it more the first time through the order and it paid dividends.
“I’ve had a really good feel for my splitter the last four or five starts, and I just really haven’t gotten to the point where I’m using it,” Eovaldi said. “I need to use it more, and that’s what I was doing today. I was throwing a lot of them early in the count, late in the count, doubling up on those. Using the curveball a little bit more. That first-pitch strike and then trying to use the heaters at the top of zone. I felt like I was able to keep them off-balance and stay ahead of the count.”
With the homer he allowed to Frazier, Eovaldi has now surrendered 15 round-trippers this season, which is the most in the majors and ties the number he gave up all of last year.
But if Eovaldi can stick with what worked against the Mariners, that number might not continue to balloon.
“I felt like I just did a better job of really commanding the zone,” Eovaldi. “I wasn’t in the middle part of the zone. I was either at the bottom or the top, and I feel like that’s where I need to be. That’s what (Red Sox catcher Kevin Plawecki) and I had talked about and our game plan coming in today and it worked.”
