Brian Johnson Earns First Major League Win After Red Sox Drop The Blue Jays To 2-11
Brian Johnson, then 24, made his major league debut on July 21, 2015 in Houston. He would have to wait 637 days — or one year, eight months and 28 days — before taking the mound again last night in Toronto.
A lot of shit has gone down since his first major league start. In October of 2015, he, along with some friends, were carjacked in his hometown of Cocoa Beach, Florida. The carjacker fired a shot into the ground and a fragment of the bullet struck one of Johnson’s friends. Johnson was unharmed in the incident.
Back in 2012, Johnson was hit in the face with a comebacker on the mound, and less than two weeks ago, it happened again. Only this time, it caught him right on the side of the head. As many of you know, Johnson also suffered from anxiety last year, which he dealt with head on. Alex Speier wrote a great story on Johnson’s battle with anxiety for the Globe last summer. You should check that out.
The Red Sox broadcast was talking about Johnson’s journey back to the MLB since his major league debut, and all of the things that have happened to him along the way. After that segment, I got a tweet last night from somebody who said something along the lines of, “It literally took an entire inning to list all of the bad things that have happened to Brian Johnson.” I got a chuckle out of it, because it’s true. But the poor fuckin’ guy has dealt with so much. It’s hard not to root for somebody who has been through all of that when all he wanted to do was pitch on a big league mound. Last night, he got to do that, and I was really proud of him for reaching his goal of toeing a major league rubber again.
With Eduardo Rodriguez away from the team after welcoming his son into the world a couple days ago, Johnson got the spot start and gave the Red Sox five innings, allowing four earned runs on seven hits. He walked three and struck out six, also gave up a couple solo home runs. He wouldn’t be a true Red Sox starter unless he struggled in the first inning, which was the case, allowing two runs to boost Boston’s first inning ERA to 9.64, second worst in the majors.
Luckily for Johnson, the Baseball Gods have it out for the Blue Jays this year. Marcus Stroman got the start for Toronto, who came into this one with a 1.76 ERA, the 9th best in the American League, but the Red Sox came into their matchup with Stroman as the best hitting team in the majors (.287 BA). Boston chased Stroman after 4.2 innings and six earned runs, catapulting his ERA to 4.05. Yikes.
There has been a lot of talk about the Red Sox’s lack of home runs to start the year, but I don’t see that as a concern, really. I think Mazz had this stat on the radio yesterday, but the San Francisco Giants were last in the majors in home runs in 2012 and still won the World Series. I think that starting pitching and starting pitching depth are Boston’s two biggest issues at the moment.
Offensively, since they dropped three of four to the Tigers in Detroit and had half the team puking their brains out, they’re averaging an even 5 runs per game since April 11. And even more recently, they had 15 hits last night, 9 hits on Monday and 17 hits on Sunday. They lead the majors in hits with 143, and the lead the American League with 32 doubles.
With a night off for Dustin Pedroia, you had Xander Bogaearts leading off with two hits, Andrew Benintendi had two hits, Mookie Betts had three hits, Mitch Moreland had three hits, and Pablo Sandoval had three hits, and HE EVEN GOT ONE HITTING RIGHT-HANDED! That’s when I knew it was their night, if Pablo’s actually getting hits right-handed. He actually should’ve had four hits, but Devon Travis made a great play to rob him of his fourth to end the top of the ninth. It’s good to see Sandoval actually catch a break. His numbers had been plummeting, but he was still making hard, solid contact. Patience with Sandoval is starting to pay off.
In his last three games, Benintendi is hitting .571 with three doubles. Mookie went deep last night for his first of the season, and he’s hitting .615 with two doubles and a homer in his last three games. Moreland hit his major league-leading 10th double of the season last night, and he’s hitting .533 with two doubles and a homer over his last four games.
These people that are concerned with the Red Sox offense because they’re not hitting homers — I mean, are you guys even watching the games? They’re hitting piss rockets all over the place and scoring plenty of runs. So much so that they’ve won their last four straight. and are now in a three-way tie for first place. Shouts to JJ. This game wasn’t as close as the box score would indicate, because Matt Barnes puked all over himself for three runs in the ninth. Say hi to the camera, Mitchy.
Final score: Red Sox 8, Blue Jays 7