The reasons to doubt that Ryan Brasier wouldn’t land where he currently finds himself —as perhaps the Red Sox’ most important relief pitcher heading to Tuesday night’s Wild Card Game against the Yankees — hadn’t been hard to find.
A broken finger the day before Thanksgiving. The untimely death of his father in the early days of spring training. A serious calf injury. Being hit the head with an 104 mph line-drive. And, just a few weeks ago, a demotion to Triple-A.
For most trying to decipher if Brasier could actually throw important pitches or the Red Sox in 2021, disbelief wasn’t hard to find. There was one consistent believer, however: the pitcher, himself.
“With all the (expletive) that has gone on this year, I don’t know if anybody expected me to be throwing how I have,” Brasier told WEEI.com after Monday’s workout at Fenway Park. “For me, myself, not a single doubt. I can’t say that for everyone else. But for me there wasn’t any doubt.”
And here is, the high-leverage reliever this Red Sox team desperately needed.
The most recent, and most powerful, punctuation came over the weekend when Brasier was called upon to get some of the season’s biggest outs. And it was that last pitch, the one that struck out the Nationals’ Jordy Mercer with the bases loaded during Sunday’s postseason clincher, that allowed the 34-year-old to truly understand how impactful the entire journey has been.
Strike 3. Scream. Chest pound.
“This year, finally getting to where I feel completely good with my mechanics and where I’m at pitching and getting a chance to pitch in some of the games I have gotten to pitch in … I don’t want to say … For what has gone on this year, the last few outings have been super … I usually don’t act like that on the mound,” Brasier said. “With all the (expletive) that has gone on this year it just kind of came out. One hundred percent you don’t know you’re going to do it until it happens. It’s part of how emotional the game is and where I was even two months ago, or even two weeks ago when I sent down.
“Bases loaded. The two infield hits and the walk. I had two outs and Alex left me out there to get that last out. Just a 1-0 game, and all the shit that has gone on it just kind of all boiled up.”
There has been so much that has gone wrong. So much. Reminders are all over the place, including a ringing in his ears leftover from that line-drive to the head that still hasn’t gone away. (“It’s still there. It’s not as bad. It’s really faint. But I have ringing pretty consistently. It could go away. It could kind of be stagnant. I used to wake up and not be able to fall asleep. I would have to turn the TV on. Now there’s no TV, going to sleep, sleeping fine. It has gone down a whole lot. It’s gotten a lot better for sure,” he explained.)
But what he also won’t forget is that one brief moment when things started taking a turn for the better.
After spending the weekend in Boston following his demotion to Triple-A Worcester, waiting for the WooSox to return from their Syracuse road trip, Brasier got the call back to Boston after Garrett Whitlock suffered a pectoral muscle injury. Monday he came back to Fenway Park. Tuesday night he was warming up to face the Mets. And that’s when something clicked.
“I knew I wasn’t completely right. Everything felt right. Just little mechanical stuff. It kind of just clicked warming up that first game back when I pitched against the Mets,” he remembered. “I was in the bullpen and I felt a little something in my mechanics that clicked and I have been felt pretty good ever since.”
It has shown up.
In his eight outings since that discovery, Brasier hasn’t allowed a run over 7 2/3 innings, allowing just one of his 10 inherited runners to score. Opponents are managing just a ,130 batting average and .323 OPS against him over the stretch. The fastball is sitting at 97 mph, with his slider flashing in the manner the Red Sox witnessed throughout their 2018 postseason run.
Now, he has the chance to once again be one of the most important players during the most important moments.
“Obviously, it’s hard not to look back,” Brasier said. “The calf and the head and getting here and finally throwing well. It has obviously been a weird year. But I try not to look back at it. The whole year has been (expletive), except for the last few weeks. Just trying to go a day at a time. It’s super cliche where everybody says take it a day at a time, but that’s how I have been going about the whole season, so far.
“Honestly, man, I think just getting the ball speaks for itself. You put together a few good outings, and then you have a couple of more some important spots, and then the last five days …”
Brasier has seemingly finally woken up his nightmare just in time to carve out what might be a fairytale ending.