It was a throwback from another era — Rafael Devers starting the inning at second notwithstanding. The Red Sox rallied to beat the Yankees 5-4 at Fenway Park Thursday night, thanks to a plethora of wild pitches and a sacrifice fly.
There was no talk of exit velocity, launch angle or spin rate. In other words, it was some good old fashioned baseball.
And Dennis Eckersley was here for it.
When Yankees reliever Brooks Kriske uncorked his fourth wild pitch of the frame — a fastball that sailed over the head of catcher Rob Brantly — Eckersley couldn’t contain his excitement: “Isn’t this great?!,” he said excitedly. “This is baseball when baseball was baseball.”
Damn right. One batter later, Hunter Renfroe went first-pitch swinging and lofted a fly ball to right field. It was more than enough to scoot Bogaerts home, and give Boston its eighth win over the Yankees this season.
The Red Sox are 14-6 in front of a full Fenway Park. Once again, they are feeding off the raucous Fenway Faithful.
The atmosphere may have played a role in Kriske’s horrendous performance. The young right-hander tied a dubious MLB record with four wild pitches in the same inning.
Beautifully, Eckersley used the word “pathetic” 15 times in the 10th inning when referencing Kriske, according to our pal John Tomase.
Mocking pitchers for not finding the plate instead of calculating whether a second baseman should’ve shifted 10 more feet to the left. That’s baseball indeed.
