The Kings Of Extra Innings Do It Again, Beat Baltimore In 11 Innings After Trailing By Five Runs
The Kings of Extra Innings strike again, improving to 14-3 in extra inning games this year. Not only that, but they knocked off the team with the second best winning percentage in extra innings this season, the Baltimore Orioles, who are now 12-3 in extra innings. Perhaps even more impressively, they did it on the road. Perhaps even MORE impressively than that, they did it when their starting pitcher only gave them two innings, which means that the Red Sox bullpen had to take over in the third inning and then pitch an extra two innings.
Being that the Red Sox have played the second most extra inning games of any team in the majors — most of them going an absurd amount of innings to the point where Andrew Benintendi said that last night’s game felt like a nine inning game compared to the six-hour marathon that they played on Friday night — one might accurately assume that the Red Sox have played more innings than any other team in baseball. That assumption would be correct. Red Sox pitchers have thrown 1,372.1 innings this year. The league average is 1,335 innings, so they’re noticeably above that.
But when you go into extra innings, it’s not the starting pitchers who feel the effects of that, aside from when you need one to come into a game in relief. The Red Sox did need a starter in relief against the Yankees at Fenway Park back on July 15 when a 16-inning game took five hours and 50 minutes to complete with Doug Fister taking the loss. But, back to the bullpen. I’ve seen this theory floating around that the Red Sox are going to run into problems in the postseason because of all these extra inning games and their bullpens being taxed because of them.
Guess where the Red Sox bullpen ranks in innings pitched? First? Second? Third? Nope. Twenty-fourth out of 30 teams. That’s because Red Sox starters have thrown the fourth most innings of any staff in baseball, and that obviously has nothing to do with extra innings. Red Sox starters are averaging six innings per start, most of that thanks to Chris Sale, but no starting staff in baseball has averaged more innings per start than Boston. That helps the bullpen tremendously, especially when you’ve got all of these extra inning games that they’ve been playing…and winning.
If anyone has been negatively impacted by all of the extra innings, it’s the position players. Guys like Dustin Pedroia, who has a nagging knee injury and has to stand out there for hours at a time, although that wasn’t the case last night because he fouled a ball off his face. But then you also have to factor in the young guys who aren’t used to playing this many innings, like Rafael Devers, who was hitting .364 with an 1.151 OPS over his first 20 games, and has since gone on to hit .233 with a .580 OPS over his last 27 games. That’s where I think the grind of having to play all these extra innings has been felt the most, the position players.
All that being said, if you read between the lines here, what can we make of all this? Well, I’ve always felt that the comparisons to the 2011 team were complete bullshit, even when things felt like they were taking a turn for the worse, because this 2017 Red Sox team has never made any excuses. That 2011 team could not make excuses fast enough. It was God’s fault, it was the schedule’s fault, it was injuries; this and that. This year’s Red Sox team has taken pride in having to grind out these long ass comeback victories, knowing that the Yankees are breathing right down their necks in the process.
The Negative Nancy fans will look at last night’s game and say, “See! Told you Doug Fister was a shit starter that can’t be trusted in the postseason!” Couple things here, if that’s your take — first of all, one bad start doesn’t negate all the good ones that he’s had since he’s been in the rotation. Second, no one ever spoke of Fister like he was some kind of godsend that magically became an ace or something. It simply came down to who was pitching better between Fister and Rick Porcello. You could still make the case that since Fister joined the rotation, it’s still Fister. But you need to let these things play out. Fister could totally go in the tank from here, and Porcello could dominate to close out the season and you obviously ride the hot hand into October.
If you’re not a Negative Nancy fan, then my hope is that you watched last night’s game and had a moment with yourself like, “This team could actually make a decent run, huh?” Are they the best team in the American League? Nope. If you wanted to argue that they’re not even the second best team in the American League, I’m not sure that I’d even fight you on that. But what we do know is that they’re not a roll over and die team, and we saw that last night.
The fuckin’ Orioles, whenever they play the Yankees, they just roll over and let them pat their bellies, and then they’ll go into a series against Boston and play the Red Sox like it’s Game 7 of the World Series. That’s fine. This time of year, you don’t want to play the roll over and die teams. You want to be tested. And more than that, you want to pass those tests. Last night was yet another test for this Red Sox team, and they passed. Have Fister go out there, get knocked around against a team that Boston has struggled against all year long, and see how they respond.
Trailing 6-1 going into the fifth inning, the Red Sox responded by scoring six runs in the top half to take a 7-6 lead, capped off by a bases loaded, bases-clearing double by Mookie Betts. The bullpen gave it back immediately in the bottom half, so how would the Red Sox respond? Xander Bogaerts, who has fallen well short of expectations this year offensively, cranked a home run out to left-center to tie the game back up at eight. At this point, a tie game in the seventh inning, I think most Red Sox fans aren’t thinking about whether or not this game will go into extra innings, but how many extra innings will they play?
The answer to that question is eleven. In the top of the eleventh, thanks to three walks, one of them intentional, Andrew Benintendi came to the plate with the bases loaded and knocked a base hit into right field to drive in a pair of runs. That was all Carson Smith would need. Smith, by the way, low, low key has been really good since returning from Tommy John surgery. Small sample size, given that he’s pitched 3.2 innings over four appearances, but he hasn’t allowed a run and he’s struck out three batters.
With the win, the Red Sox keep their three-game lead in the American League East over the Yankees with 12 games to go. Finish what you started.
Final score: Red Sox 10, Orioles 8 — 11 innings