It’s safe to say Dennis Eckersley isn’t a fan of Ryan Yarbrough. The Rays left-hander is slow, plodding and unimpressive. He is a brutal to watch whether you are sitting at home or inside of the NESN booth.
Eckersley roasted Yarbrough during the Red Sox’s 9-5 extra-innings win over the Rays Tuesday, constantly bemoaning his glacial pace and soft stuff. “I don’t know this guy gets hitters out, to be honest,” Eckerlsey said at one point in the top of the third. It was an ugly frame of baseball.
Though Yarbrough pitched less than two full innings, he still managed to allow five runs and throw 67 pitches. He entered the game at 7:21 p.m., and didn’t get pulled until 8:33 p.m.
Along the way, Eckersley hilariously mocked the four-year vet whenever the Red Sox hit him around. J.D. Martinez got the scoring started when he laced a two-run double down the left field line. Jerry Remy commented that Yarbrough, who features a slew of junk balls in the upper 70s and low 80s, has “nothing to get Martinez out with.”
Eckersley corrected Remy, and said Yarbrough has “nothing to begin with.”
When Hunter Renfroe took Yarborough hard, Eckersley let out a verbal sigh of relief. “Someone finally got him,” he said. “I was just looking up to see how many home runs he’s allowed this year.” (For the record, it’s 13.)
Yarborough was one of seven Rays pitchers on the night, working the second and third innings in relief of opener Andrew Kittredge. Tampa Bay was the first team to experiment with the opener concept in 2018, using it as a creative way to boost its rotation. While the concept is smart from an analytical standpoint — as we know, pitchers typically become less effective each time they go through the lineup — it’s emblematic of the suffocating grip that analytics holds on the game right now.
And perhaps no pitcher serves as a better face for the movement than Yarbrough, who treats every pitch as if he’s dissecting a nuclear code. When Kevin Cash finally pulled him, Eckersley spoke for all of us.
“Oh, thank goodness,” he said. "That was atrocious."
Amen.