July 2, 2018: Rare RBIs from Rick Porcello help Red Sox take over first place for good

It had been something like feast or famine for the Boston Red Sox for the six years leading up to the 2018 season. From 1998 through 2011, the Red Sox were consistently competitive, never finishing below third in the American League East Division while making the postseason eight times. Having not won a World Series for 86 years, they finally broke through in 2004, then won another in 2007.

In 2012, though, they finished last, 26 games out of first place. It was the first time Boston had been last in the division since 1992. The year after that, 2013, they won the World Series again – going worst to first. Yet they were last for the next two seasons, 25 games behind the Baltimore Orioles in 2014 and 15 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015.

In 2016 and 2017, the Red Sox took first place in the AL East but both years were wiped out in the Division Series by the eventual World Series champions, swept by the Cleveland Indians in 2016 and winning only one game against the Houston Astros in 2017.

Finally, in 2018, the Red Sox got it all together. They had a new manager in Alex Cora, replacing John Farrell, who had seen them to the championship in 2013 but then endured the ups and downs for the following four seasons.

Team personnel was not so different as in 2017. The only major addition was J.D. Martinez as designated hitter, with the major loss being Dustin Pedroia. And it’s not as though everyone performed as well – Drew Pomeranz and Chris Sale had each won a team-leading 17 games in 2017, but in 2018 Pomeranz was 2-6 and Sale was 12-4. Some younger players had strong seasons – Mookie Betts winning the American League MVP and Xander Bogaerts driving in over 100 runs. With a relatively similar team, the Red Sox pulled off in 2018 what they had not been able to the year before.

Not only did the 2018 Red Sox finish first in the division for the third season in a row, they just kept winning. Their 108 regular-season wins, an all-time franchise high, put them eight games ahead of the second-place New York Yankees. They had won 100 or more games only three times before: 1912 (105 wins), 1915 (101), and 1946 (104).1

The Red Sox started 2018 with a loss on the road, 6-4, to the Tampa Bay Rays on March 29. They then won nine games in a row and 17 of their next 18 – they were 17-2 on April 20 and held a four-game lead in the division.

From March 31 through the end of April, they were in first place. At the end of April, they were 21-7 with a three-game lead over the Yankees.

The Red Sox finished May in first place, too, despite dipping to second for three days.

In June they were in second for seven days. The rest of the month, they were in first in the standings, though on five of those days, they did not hold sole possession; they were nominally tied for first. In fact, they were percentage points behind the Yankees on all five of those days.

After the Red Sox lost to the Yankees in New York, 11-1 on July 1, the two teams were tied for first place in the division. Starter David Price had been hammered for eight runs in the first 3½ innings, and the Red Sox were shut out until the ninth.

The Red Sox traveled to Washington to play the Nationals on July 2.

It was a Monday night game at Nationals Park, and it drew very well – attendance was 39,002. The game time temperature was 94. The Nationals had reached the postseason four times in the previous six seasons but had lost in the National League Division Series each year. They were in third place in the NL East, six games behind the Atlanta Braves.

Both starting pitchers had been teammates on the Detroit Tigers from 2010 through 2014, and both were Cy Young Award winners. Washington manager Dave Martínez started right-hander Max Scherzer, who had lost three straight decisions but still had a record of 10-4 and an ERA of 2.04. The 33-year-old Scherzer had won his third career Cy Young Award in 2017 and led his league in wins three times.

Rick Porcello was manager Cora’s choice to start for the Red Sox. A right-hander as well, the 29-year-old Porcello had led both leagues in 2016 with 22 wins and received the AL Cy Young Award. He was 9-3 so far in 2018, though his 3.60 ERA was significantly higher than Scherzer’s.

Neither team scored in the first inning, but the Red Sox scored three times in the top of the second. Mitch Moreland led off with a single. After Rafael Devers popped up to the second baseman, Scherzer hit Brock Holt with a pitch. Scherzer struck out Sandy León for the second out, but the pitch went wild – literally between Leon’s two legs – he swung nonetheless – and both runners advanced. Jackie Bradley Jr. was walked intentionally, setting up Scherzer to pitch to fellow pitcher Porcello.

A career AL pitcher, Porcello did not have a major-league extra-base hit before this game. He’d had five singles in 32 career at-bats, a .156 batting average. He had only two career RBIs: a pair of run-scoring singles for the Tigers against the Pittsburgh Pirates in an interleague road game in 2009, his rookie year.2

Scherzer got two strikes on Porcello, “a man who had looked utterly lost” at the plate, in the words of the Washington Post.3 But Porcello swung at the next pitch and connected, smacking a double over 19-year-old rookie Juan Soto in left-center, the ball taking two hops and hitting the wall. All three runners scored, Porcello had his first RBIs in nine years, and the Red Sox had a 3-0 lead.

Porcello became the first Red Sox pitcher to drive in three runs in a game since the introduction of the designated hitter in 1973, and just the 13th Boston pitcher with an RBI during that time. Prior to Porcello, the last Red Sox pitcher to have a three-RBI game was Sonny Siebert in September 1971.4

The Nationals scored on the first pitch in the bottom of the fourth, on a leadoff homer a dozen rows into the left-field seats by Anthony Rendon. They added a second run in the sixth, on Porcello’s first pitch to Daniel Murphy, a homer to right-center. It was 3-2 after six innings.

Brandon Kintzler took over from Scherzer in the Red Sox seventh. Leading off, Betts hit his 21st homer of the season – a dozen rows deep to left-center, making it 4-2, Boston. The Red Sox got only a couple more hits in the game, an eighth-inning single by Holt off Tim Collins and a ninth-inning single by Bradley off Shawn Kelley.

Matt Barnes had relieved Porcello and pitched a scoreless seventh. Joe Kelly took over in the eighth, and the first batter he faced was Bryce Harper, who homered to right, his 21st of 2018. It was the third Nationals round-tripper of the game, but all three had been solo home runs. The score stood 4-3, Red Sox. Kelly struck out the next two and was replaced by Craig Kimbrel, who earned a four-out save, his 25th of the season. Kimbrel finished 2018 with 42 saves.

By virtue of the 4-3 win, and the Braves beating the Yankees, 5-3 in 11 innings at Yankee Stadium, the Red Sox regained first place in the AL East. The victory kicked off another prolonged winning streak – 10 in a row and 15 of 17 games. It also put the Red Sox in first place to stay, no longer tied in the standings. By the end of July, they had a five-game lead. The Yankees were second. Third place was Tampa Bay, 20 games behind Boston. In August, the Red Sox’ lead was as high as 10½ games, and it was 7½ at the end of the month. The Red Sox’ season-high lead was 11½ games on September 16, and they finished eight games ahead of the Yankees, beating New York on the final day of the regular season for their 108th win.

Unlike 2016 and 2017, the Red Sox kept winning in postseason play. They knocked out the Yankees in four games in the best-of-five Division Series, including a 16-1 Game Three win at Yankee Stadium. It took five games in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series to end the Astros’ reign and give the Red Sox the 13th pennant in franchise history.

The Red Sox went to the World Series and played the Los Angeles Dodgers. As in the ALCS and ALDS, Boston lost just once, Game Three at Dodger Stadium in 18 innings, remembered by Red Sox fans for the six innings that Nathan Eovaldi threw from inning 13 through the end of the game, losing on Max Muncy’s home run but sparing the Red Sox bullpen. It was the longest game ever played in World Series history. The Red Sox won the next two, and the Series. The Red Sox’ total of 119 wins in 2018 – 108 in the regular season and 11 in the postseason – was third-most in big-league history.5

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Jim Sweetman and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Rick Porcello, 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 game on YouTube.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS201807020.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2018/B07020WAS2018.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J285pd4ZQrQ

Notes

1 It is worth noting that all three of those years were 154-game seasons and the Red Sox’ .667 winning percentage in 2018 was lower than those of the three earlier years. The team’s best winning percentage was in 1912 (.691), when they were 105-47.

2 Porcello’s RBI singles against Pittsburgh’s Ian Snell were in his first and third big-league at-bats. Vince Ellis, “Porcello Wins 7th, Singles Twice, Drives in Two in First At-Bats,” Detroit Free Press, June 13, 2009: 9B.

3 Chelsea James, “One Mistake Dooms Scherzer, Nationals as Slide Continues in 4-3 Loss to Red Sox,” Washington Post, July 3, 2018. https://www.proquest.com/usnews/docview/2063153101/CB4BA15AEBA84A6APQ/3?accountid=69. Accessed November 7, 2022.

4 Rachel G. Bowers, “Rick Porcello and the Best Hitting Performances by a Red Sox Pitcher,” Boston Globe (online), July 3, 2018. https://www.proquest.com/usnews/docview/2063288900/CB4BA15AEBA84A6APQ/15?accountid=69. Accessed November 7, 2018. Bowers quoted Porcello: “He got to the top of his windup and I told myself, ‘Start swinging. … Then, you know, I hit it. That was awesome. That was the best part, looking back in the dugout and seeing everybody going crazy.” For his part, Scherzer simply acknowledged, “I know he can hit. We played together. I’ve seen him hit. Threw him a couple of sliders to keep him off balance and then threw him a fastball up and away, and I ran back middle in and anybody can hit middle in. … This one is on me tonight.” Nick Cafardo, “A Friendly Reminder for Scherzer,” Boston Globe, July 3, 2018: D1.

5 The New York Yankees won 125 games in 1998 and the Seattle Mariners won 120 in 2001.