May 30, 2013: Jacoby Ellsbury sets Red Sox franchise record with five steals in win over Phillies

On May 30, 2013, Boston Red Sox center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury seemingly ran wild, stealing a franchise-record five bases against the Philadelphia Phillies – yet not one of them featured in the game’s scoring.1 Still, the Red Sox racked up nine runs and held on to first place in the American League East Division with a 9-2 win at Citizens Bank Ballpark in Philadelphia.

It was the fourth game of a home-and-home interleague series between the Red Sox and Phillies. They had split two games at Fenway Park; when the action moved 300 miles down the Eastern Seaboard to Philadelphia on May 29, the Phillies made four solo homers stand up for a 4-3 win.

Boston’s win in the first game of the series had given the Red Sox sole possession of first place in the AL East for the first time since May 7. At 32-22, the Red Sox led the New York Yankees by one game. The Phillies were in third in the NL East, one game under .500 and 5½ games behind the first-place Atlanta Braves.

The starting pitcher for the Phillies and manager Charlie Manuel was rookie right-hander Jonathan Pettibone, 3-0 in his first seven starts and entering the game with a 3.21 ERA. Ellsbury led off the top of the first inning with a clean single to left field on Pettibone’s second pitch to him. He’d been struggling a bit and came into the game batting just .260. Ellsbury had led the AL in steals in 2008 and 2009 and had swiped 16 bases in his first 18 attempts in 2013.

Daniel Nava followed with a single up the middle and to the right of second base. Ellsbury went to third. Dustin Pedroia hit a slow bounder to second base; the only play Cesar Hernandez had was to first, as Ellsbury scored the game’s first run and Nava took second.

DH David Ortiz walked. Left fielder Mike Carp singled between first and second; the throw home was too late, and Nava scored from second. Pettibone struck out Red Sox shortstop Stephen Drew, but catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia – batting left-handed – hit a first-pitch double just about a foot inside the right-field line and drove in two more runs. It was 4-0, Boston, before the Phillies batted.

Manager John Farrell’s starter was left-hander Franklin Morales. Typically a reliever, Morales was making his first appearance in 2013. He’d hurt his back in spring training and had just come off the disabled list after rehabbing by starting five games in the minors. He was called up from Triple A because Clay Buchholz was out briefly with a sore right shoulder and the Red Sox wanted to hold back Jon Lester a day so that he could start against the Yankees the next night.

Morales faced a depleted Phillies lineup. First baseman Ryan Howard, a two-time home-run king who had homered in the previous night’s game, was out with a knee injury. Five-time All-Star second baseman Chase Utley was on the disabled list.2 Third baseman Michael Young – a six-time All-Star and career .300 hitter – was on the bereavement list. As the Philadelphia Daily News noted, the Phillies “featured a pair of corner infielders who had combined for 17 home runs in their major league careers and a second baseman who was making his first major league start.”3

Philadelphia’s newcomer at second base, Hernandez, hit a one-out single to left in the first.4 Shortstop Jimmy Rollins flied out to the warning track in left and there were two outs. Right fielder Delmon Young hit an opposite-field home run several rows deep over the scoreboard in right-center, cutting the deficit to 4-2.

Left fielder Domonic Brown – who had hit two home runs a night earlier – singled. He attempted to steal second, but Saltalamacchia’s throw to Pedroia gunned him down to end the inning.

Neither team scored for the next four innings, though both threatened. With one out in the second, Ellsbury singled to center, stole second, and took third on Pedroia’s infield single, but was left stranded there. He singled and stole second again in the fourth, but advanced no farther.

Morales settled down after the first inning, retiring the Phillies in order three times in four innings and escaping a bases-loaded one-out threat in the fourth with a 6-4-3 double play. After five full innings, it was still Red Sox 4, Phillies 2.

In the top of the sixth, Jeremy Horst took over pitching from Pettibone, who had thrown 98 pitches in five innings. It looked as though another scoreless inning was in order when Horst struck out Saltalamacchia and Delmon Young threw out shortstop Jose Iglesias trying to stretch a single into a double.

But Jonny Gomes, pinch-hitting for Morales, homered to straightaway left-center, one of seven pinch-hit homers for Boston in 2013.5

Horst hit Ellsbury with the next pitch, and home-plate umpire Bill Miller issued warnings. On the very next pitch, Ellsbury stole second, his third steal of the evening. Two pitches later, Ellsbury stole third base.6 As in the second and fourth innings, however, Ellsbury was again stranded in scoring position. Boston’s lead remained 5-2.

After the game, Ellsbury indicated that getting hit in the back by the pitch may have given him a bit more motivation: “Definitely lit a fire a little bit. I was going to try to get to third as quick as possible.”7

The new pitcher for the Red Sox was Craig Breslow. He got two groundouts and a strikeout in the bottom of the sixth.

David Ortiz led off the seventh with a high, arcing home run off Horst that landed 8 to 10 rows deep in the seats in right-center. It was his ninth homer of the season and the 410th of his career. That made the score 6-2, Red Sox.

Breslow struck out the first Philadelphia batter he faced in the bottom of the seventh and was then relieved by Clayton Mortensen, who finished off the inning.

Right-hander Michael Stutes took over for Horst in the eighth. With two outs (the second being Mortensen, who batted for himself and struck out), Ellsbury looped a single into left.8

With Nava batting, Stutes tossed over to first base five times before throwing to the plate. On the first pitch home, Ellsbury took off and had the base stolen. Catcher Eric Kratz’s throw bounced in front of the bag and went into center; Ellsbury took third on the throwing error. Ellsbury had his fifth stolen base of the night.9 Once again, he got no farther than third, though.

Boston’s third reliever, Junichi Tazawa, held Philadelphia to a single by Hernandez in the bottom of the eighth.

The Red Sox put the game on ice by scoring three more times in the top of the ninth against Chad Durbin. Jackie Bradley Jr. singled to left. Mike Napoli singled off the scoreboard in right field and Bradley went to third. Drew grounded out, Bradley scoring. Saltalamacchia doubled, also off the right-field scoreboard, driving in Napoli. On Durbin’s ninth pitch of the at-bat, Iglesias doubled off the bottom of the left-field scoreboard and Saltalamacchia scored for a 9-2 lead.10

Andrew Bailey closed for the Red Sox, the only baserunner being first baseman Kevin Frandsen, who doubled with two outs.

Manuel may have perhaps been a bit unfair in some of his postgame remarks regarding Ellsbury’s steals, “peeved at his pitchers for not paying closer attention to him.”11 As noted, Stutes had in fact thrown over five times.

Pedroia, of course, had plenty of praise for his teammate Ellsbury: “It brings our offense to another level, that speed factor. He can run at will. It’s a pretty big part of our offense when he’s playing like that.”12 The five steals gave Ellsbury 21 for the season.13

It was Philadelphia’s 11th loss of the season by five or more runs. The Phillies hung around .500 before losing eight games in a row from July 20 to 28 (and 13 games in a 14-game stretch); they finished 2013 at 73-89, in fourth place in the NL East.

The win increased Boston’s division lead to two games and guaranteed that the Red Sox would end May where they ended April: in sole possession of first place in the AL East.14

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Joseph Wancho and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI201305300.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2013/B05300PHI2013.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3JSaFKH6kc

Notes

1 The five stolen bases in one game set a Red Sox franchise record. In the nineteenth century, both George Gore and Billy Hamilton had seven-steal games. From 1900 through 2022, four players have stolen six: Eddie Collins (who did it twice in September 1912), Otis Nixon, Eric Young, and Carl Crawford.

2 Utley had been selected for five NL All-Star teams at the time of this game. He added a sixth selection in 2014.

3 David Murphy, “Too Many Holes to Fill,” Philadelphia Daily News, May 31, 2013: 76.

4 Like Pettibone, Hernandez was another rookie and was making his first major-league start. The base hit was the first of his career.

5 The first was also by Gomes, on April 30 against Toronto. Indeed, Gomes hit four of the seven pinch-hit homers – the other two were on July 3 against the San Diego Padres and on August 6 against Houston.

6 With his fourth steal, Ellsbury tied his career high, set on August 9, 2010, against the Yankees in New York. In that game, the first of his steals resulted in the run that provided Boston’s second run in their 2-1 victory.

7 Peter Abraham, “It’s All a Blur for Sox,” Boston Globe, May 31, 2013: C1, C5.

8 It was Mortensen’s 16th (and final) at-bat in the big leagues. His career batting average remained .000. Stutes was a former college teammate at Oregon State.   

9 Four players hold the record of six in one game – Carl Crawford (May 3, 2009), Eric Young (June 30, 1996), and Otis Nixon (June 16, 1991) being the three most recent. Eddie Collins did it twice in less than two weeks – on September 11 and 22, 1912. As of the end of the 2022 season, 20 players had stolen five.   

10 The Daily News pointed out that Durbin had allowed multiple runs in five of his last eight outings. See Murphy, “Too Many Holes to Fill.”

11 Matt Gelb, “Can’t Join .500 Club,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 31, 2013: C1. Murphy quoted Manuel: “All you have to do is hold the ball or step off. … You can’t just not look over there, or just glance and then set and throw.” Murphy, “Too Many Holes to Fill.” The video evidence shows that Pettibone threw over twice before the first steal. The next two steals happened without a throw. Horst didn’t even glance over before the third steal, but did throw to second base once after the stolen base. But it was just once; he then threw home as Ellsbury stole his fourth. Interestingly, the Phillies broadcasters were talking about the need to keep an eye on Ellsbury from the very first time he got on base.

12 Abraham.

13 The Phillies graciously gave Ellsbury a souvenir keepsake: They presented him with second base after the game. The Globe’s Abraham informed readers: “In case you were wondering, bases are left dirty when they’re framed and hung on a wall.” Ellsbury added, “Looks better.” By season’s end, Ellsbury had 52 steals, leading both leagues, against only four times caught stealing. He stole six more in the postseason, including one in each of the four games of the Division Series against Tampa Bay.

14 The Red Sox fell out of first place briefly in late July and were tied for the division lead for a few days in late August. Nevertheless, they finished all six months alone in first, on their way to an AL pennant and World Series title.