Things you never thought you would hear heading into Friday night’s round of Major League Baseball games …
“Brock Holt came in had never allowed a hit with a runner in scoring position.”
Well, now we have heard it and now Holt has surrendered a hit with a runner in scoring position.
The former Red Sox utility man capped quite an eventful week by getting a chance to pitch for the first time in his major league career.
“It was just kind of quick,” Holt said after his Nationals' dropped a 14-3 decision to Miami. “(Washington manager Dave Martinez) came up to me and asked if I would be willing to pitch if things got out of hand, and I said, ‘Yes.’
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, just never really had the opportunity. ... Unfortunately, not a situation you want to be in, but it’s kind of cool as a position player to get on the mound and pitch. So I can check that one off the list, but unfortunately it was a tough loss for us.”
Statcast registered Holt as throwing 19 curveballs and two changeups, although the nine-year veteran said that might have been somewhat of a misunderstanding.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t throw one single curveball, but it kept saying it up on the board,” said Holt, who topped out at 80 mph. “I kept looking up there, and I tried throw a little bit harder to see if they’d at least put ‘Fastball’ up there, but they didn’t.”
Holt has now played every position except catcher.
The outing comes just days after Holt and his wife Lakyn welcomed their second son, Rippkin.