August 29, 2018: Red Sox batters record 12 hits in consecutive at-bats to set a franchise record

It was quite a way to turn a game around – with 12 hits in 12 consecutive at-bats.

The Boston Red Sox were hosting the Miami Marlins at Fenway Park on Wednesday evening, August 29, 2018. Boston had won the night before on a walkoff, rebounding after losing a lead during Miami’s five-run eighth inning, but before that the Red Sox had lost six of eight games. The August 28 win saw Boston maintain a 6½-game lead over the second-place New York Yankees in the American League East Division. The Marlins were faring poorly, a full 22 games behind first-place Atlanta in the NL East Division. 

The starting pitchers on August 29 were veteran left-hander David Price (14-6, 3.50), for manager Alex Cora’s Red Sox, and rookie right-hander Trevor Richards (3-7, 4.23), for Don Mattingly’s Marlins. The Marlins scored first with a second-inning, leadoff homer deep into the right-field seats by DH Derek Dietrich, his 16th of the season. In the bottom of the second, on the 12th pitch of a lengthy at-bat, Boston third baseman Eduardo Núñez responded to that with a two-out solo homer, his ninth, into the seats atop the left-field wall.

The Marlins took a 3-1 lead in the third on an RBI double by catcher J.T. Realmuto and an RBI single by the next batter, second baseman Starlin Castro. After Dietrich was hit by a pitch, a two-out line drive by left fielder Austin Dean—appearing in his 12th big-league game after a mid-August promotion from Triple A—struck Price in his left wrist, which the pitcher had raised defensively in front of his face. The ball ricocheted to first baseman Steven Pearce, who flipped it to Price covering first to just barely get Dean. Price had thrown his last pitch of the game; Héctor Velázquez relieved him to start the fourth inning.1

The Red Sox got one run back in the bottom of the third on right fielder Mookie Betts’ 28th homer of the season. In the fifth, the Marlins took a 4-2 lead after third baseman Brian Anderson was hit by a pitch, took second on a wild pitch, and scored on a Castro single.

Boston DH J.D. Martinez’s two-out RBI single in the sixth made it a one-run game again, but the Marlins came right back on Realmuto’s run-scoring groundout in the seventh. It was 5-3 Marlins through the seventh-inning stretch.

Drew Rucinski had relieved Richards and secured the final out in the sixth. Leading off the bottom of the seventh, Núñez singled just to the left of second base, a modest beginning to what turned into a flood of hits.

Sox second baseman Ian Kinsler doubled halfway up the wall in left field, his 400th career two-base hit. Núñez stopped at third. Adam Conley replaced Rucinski. Pinch-hitter Blake Swihart batted for catcher Sandy León and lined a single between short and third, scoring Núñez.

Jackie Bradley Jr. doubled off the Green Monster in left-center, tying the score 5-5.  Betts then one-hopped the ball off the front of the Red Sox bullpen in right-center for a two-base hit, and Boston took its first lead of the game, 7-5, as both Swihart and Bradley scored.

With a runner on second and nobody out, left fielder Andrew Benintendi laid down a sacrifice bunt and Betts took third base. Mattingly called Drew Steckenrider in from the bullpen. Cora asked Brock Holt to pinch hit, and Holt tripled to the right-field corner. Betts scored the fourth run of the inning.

The Boston Herald dubbed it “a clinic in aggressive hitting” noting that “not until…the seventh batter of the inning did a hitter get deeper than three pitches.”2

J.D. Martinez was intentionally walked. On a 3-and-0 count, shortstop Xander Bogaerts singled to left. Holt scored, and the Red Sox had runners on first and second. Boston now had a 9-3 lead, with the only out being Benintendi’s sacrifice.

Javy Guerra was summoned to relieve Steckenrider. Núñez came to bat for the second time in the inning and again singled up the middle, a near carbon copy of his earlier hit. Martinez scored. Kinsler, who had doubled his first time up, slapped a single just to the left of the second baseman, and Bogaerts scored.

Swihart then collected his second hit of the inning, lining a double down the right-field line and adding another RBI to the one he had collected earlier. He got all the way to third base after right fielder Rafael Ortega dropped the ball just after he picked it up (the second of the two runs thus did not count as an RBI). Bradley Jr. singled to left and drove in Swihart. Betts then knocked a checked-swing single just inside the right-field line, Bradley Jr. going first to third.

Benintendi finally hit into an inning-ending double play, a hop to second baseman Castro, who tagged Betts, then routinely threw to first base. The Red Sox led, 14-5.

“The skies opened,” said Mattingly. “I don’t know if I can explain that inning.”3

The only time the Marlins had ever allowed more runs in one inning was also at Fenway Park, where the Red Sox scored 14 runs in the first inning on June 27, 2003. Boston won that game, 25-8, but less than four months later, the Marlins won the 2003 World Series.

In something of an understatement, Mattingly added, “It’s one of those nights where nothing worked. It’s one of those nights where we couldn’t stop them, really.”4

Boston had sent 15 men to the plate and scored 11 runs on 12 hits. There was not a home run among them. Because neither the sacrifice nor the intentional walk count as at-bats, every one of the 12 hits came on consecutive at-bats. Through the 2025 season, it remains the Red Sox franchise record.  

“Hitting is contagious,” said Mookie Betts. “Once you get a couple of hits, then the next guy is ready to hit, and then you just pass it on back.”5

The 14-6 win put the Red Sox a full 50 games over .500 (92-42), while adding a game to lead the second-place Yankees by 7½ games. They were 48-18 at home.

Oddly, Andrew Benintendi was the batter for all three of the inning’s outs—his bunt and then the double play. Right after the inning-ending double play, one of the Fox broadcasters joked, “Benintendi might get DFA’d after this inning.”

Benintendi said, postgame, “In this situation, I don’t mind it.”6 All in all, he had a very good year, batting .290 by season’s end. His 87 RBIs placed him third on the team, which did go on to win the AL pennant and win the 2018 World Series, taking four of five games from the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Marlins finished last in the National League East, a full 26 ½ games behind the Atlanta Braves.

The 2018 Red Sox spent most of the season in first place, then won each round of the playoffs losing just once each time, becoming World Series champions for the fourth time in the twenty-first century.   

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Troy Olszewski and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: Eduardo Nuñez, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com. Retrosheet.org, and video of the full game onYouTube.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS201808290.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2018/B08290BOS2018.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut7izTPdBiE

Thanks to Tim Odzer for access to the Miami Herald.

Notes

1 X-rays showed no serious injury. Price was day-by-day and returned to action on September 7, finished the season 16-7 (3.58), and appeared in six postseason games.

2 Jason Mastrodonato, “Sox won at a Price,” Boston Herald, August 30, 2018: 55.

3 Clark Spencer, “Marlins Bullpen Implodes in Epic Meltdown in Brutal Loss to Red Sox,” Miami Herald, August 29, 2018.

4 Spencer.

5 Bill Koch, “Bats break out in 11-run 7th inning for Sox,” Providence Journal, August 30, 2018:  B1.

6 Matt Porter, “The rout was on in the seventh,” Boston Globe, August 30, 2018: C4.