September 24, 2020: Boston’s Tzu-Wei Lin appears in only big-league game as a pitcher

Versatile players can help give a manager a bit more flexibility. When a team is losing a not-that-important game 10-1 heading into the ninth inning, a position player who takes a stint on the mound can help spare a beleaguered bullpen.

When Boston Red Sox shortstop Tzu-Wei Lin pitched the ninth inning on September 24 in the pandemic-shortened season of 2020, he joined a short list of the franchise’s position players who had pitched – a list that includes Jimmie Foxx and Ted Williams.1

Lin stands out from the rest, though, in that six weeks earlier, on August 13, he had briefly served as catcher in another game. In that game, Lin took over during the top of the ninth for Kevin Plawecki, who shed his catcher’s gear and went to the mound to pitch with the Red Sox trailing the Tampa Bay Rays by 12 runs.2 With Plawecki pitching and Lin catching, one batter walked but the next two were retired. In the bottom of the ninth, both members of the Boston’s makeshift battery batted, and Plawecki singled in a run.3 

The September 24 game in 2020 was between two teams hoping not to finish last in the American League East Division. With a record of 23-33, the Orioles were next to last, 13½ games behind the first-place Rays. The Red Sox were last, 14½ games behind. Should the Red Sox beat the Orioles, the two would be tied with three games left on the pandemic-shortened 60-game schedule. The game drew a paid attendance of 0, as no fans were admitted to Fenway Park during the pandemic year; a few hundred posterboard cutouts populated the stands.4

Starting for manager Ron Roenicke’s Red Sox was lefty Martín Pérez. He’d spent seven years with the Texas Rangers and then 2019 with the Minnesota Twins. In 11 starts for Boston, he’d been 3-4. 

Alex Cobb started for manager Brandon Hyde and the Orioles. He’d been a successful pitcher with the Rays, but after signing with the Orioles before the 2018 season came into this game with a record of 6-22 in three seasons in Baltimore.5 He was 1-5 so far in 2020, the one win being over the Red Sox on July 25, his first start of the season.

Both pitchers got through the first with scoreless innings, but the Orioles scored three runs in the top of the second. The first five batters all reached base, on a double, single, an RBI single between second and first by third baseman Rio Ruiz, a walk, and a two-run double into the corner down the left-field line by center fielder Cedric Mullins. Only Michael Chavis’s diving catch in left against second baseman Hanser Alberto and throw to the plate for a double play prevented Baltimore from building an even bigger lead.

The Orioles added three more in the fourth. Ruiz led off with a double off the left-field wall. Shortstop Ramón Urías hit a ground-rule double into the right-field corner and Ruiz scored. Mullins bunted, moving Urias to third, from which he scored on Alberto’s sacrifice fly to the warning track in left-center. DH Jose Iglesias followed with a solo home run into the Red Sox bullpen in right-center. It was 6-0, Orioles.

In the top of the fifth, with Dylan Covey pitching for Boston, it became 8-0 as Ruiz doubled off the center-field, wall driving in one, and Urías singled up the middle, driving in another. 

The Red Sox loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the inning on two singles and a hit batsman. Second baseman Christian Arroyo hit into a 4-6-3 double play as a run scored. Boston was on the board; the score was 8-1.

In the sixth and seventh, Covey induced six groundball outs, interrupted only by a two-out solo home run in the top of the seventh by first baseman Pat Valaika, hit into the Green Monster seats right down the left-field line.

Cobb allowed a single in the sixth and a single in the seventh, but both innings ended with 6-4-3 double plays.

When the Orioles came to bat in the top of the eighth leading 9-1, the Red Sox substituted extensively. Domingo Tapia was in to relieve Covey. Plawecki took over behind the plate, replacing Christian Vázquez. Jonathan Arauz played third base in place of Rafael Devers, and Lin entered the game at shortstop, spelling Xander Bogaerts.

Urias led off and lined the ball right to Tapia, who made the throw to first for the out, but only after the ball struck him on the bicep. He was forced to leave the game after only one batter.

Phillips Valdéz replaced Tapia on the mound. After getting Mullins out, Valdez hit Alberto with a pitch. He walked pinch-hitter Bryan Holaday. Left fielder Ryan Mountcastle singled to left-center for the 10th Orioles run.

In the bottom of the eighth, Shawn Armstrong was Hyde’s choice to take over from Cobb. He got outs from the three batters he faced.

Roenicke then made four more moves on defense. Lin had earned an assist on the last play of the eighth. Now he moved from shortstop to become Boston’s fifth pitcher of the game. Arroyo moved to the other side of the bag, leaving second base to play shortstop. Chavis, usually an infielder but starting this game in the outfield, came in from left to play second. César Puello replaced Chavis in left.

Lin’s first pitch was hit out. Hays homered into one of the light standards atop the left-field wall. “That’s not even batting practice speed right there,” said broadcaster Jerry Remy.

After Valaika singled to center, Ruiz flied out, but Urias doubled on one bounce off the right-field wall in front of the visitors bullpen, putting runners on second and third. Mullins lined out to third for the second out. Alberto doubled in the two runners with a hit into the left-field corner. Holaday flied out deep to straightaway center for the third out.

Lin had faced seven batters and had seen three runs score. It was 13-1, Orioles. His ERA was 27.00.

Lin was first to bat in the bottom of the ninth. Travis Lakins – in for Armstrong – struck him out on three pitches, the third one looking. Puello grounded out. Plawecki singled. Jackie Bradley Jr. was the last to bat, another strikeout.

Newspaper coverage was as sparse as could be, largely because sportswriters were not permitted in the clubhouse after games (or at all, this season). The only mention of Lin’s relief role at all in the next day’s Boston Globe was one sentence: “Baltimore tacked on five runs in the final three innings, including three in the ninth against utility man Tzu-Wei Lin, who pitched for the first time in his MLB career.”6

The Baltimore Sun was even briefer. “With infielder Tzu-Wei Lin pitching in the ninth, Austin Hays homered for his third hit of the game, and Alberto had a two-run double.”7

It was the end of Lin’s fourth season with the Red Sox. He appeared in 101 games during that time and played every position on the field except first base. He’d had no fielding chances at either catcher or pitcher.

He was the starting left fielder for the Red Sox in Atlanta the day after his pitching appearance. Two days later, he played the final game of the year, starting in right field and then moving to second base in the sixth. He singled his first time up; his batting average for the season was .154. He committed only two errors in 57 chances.8 In 2020 alone he had been a DH in one game and played every position but first and third.9

The 2020 season ended with the Red Sox in last place, 16 games behind the first-place Tampa Bay Rays and one game behind Baltimore.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Andrew Harner and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Tzu-Wei Lin, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author relied on Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS202009240.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2020/B09240BOS2020.htm

Highlights of the game are available on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgVr5QMWilQ

Notes

1 Lin was a native of Taiwan and played shortstop for the Taiwan team that won the 2010 World Junior Baseball Championship, after which he was named tournament MVP. Two years later, after completing high school, he signed with the Red Sox and spent five years working his way up through the minors before debuting with Boston in late June 2017. He appeared in 25 games that year, mostly as an infielder, batting .268. A left-handed hitter, he threw right-handed. Lin played in 37 games in 2018, 13 in 2019, and 26 in 2020. 

2 Plawecki’s appearance in the August 13 game was the first of three times (through mid-May 2022) that he pitched. He was called on again in games on June 30, 2021, and May 1, 2022. In all, he faced 10 batters and allowed just one hit and one base on balls, with an ERA for the three appearances of 0.00. For that matter, Jonathan Arauz also pitched in one game for the Red Sox He was the fifth Boston pitcher in the August 6, 2021, game against Toronto and the one earned run he was charged with represented a performance as good as or better than any of the others.       Two other Red Sox position players have pitched in three or more games. During World War II, infielder Eddie Lake pitched six times in the 1944 season, working 19⅓ innings with a 4.19 ERA. In the 2004 World Series championship season, first baseman-outfielder Dave McCarty pitched three times for a total of 3⅔ innings and a 2.45 ERA (the pitching staff’s ERA was 4.18).

3 Plawecki’s two-out RBI brought the score to 17-8 in Tampa Bay’s favor. The next Red Sox batter was Jonathan Arauz, who had taken over at shortstop for Lin after Lin left the field, put on catcher’s gear, and set up behind the plate. Arauz saw six pitches but struck out looking to end the game. For an account of this game, see Laura H. Peebles, “August 13, 2020: Boston’s Kevin Plawecki becomes only pitcher with a hit in 2002,” SABR Games Project at: https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/august-13-2020-bostons-kevin-plawecki-becomes-only-pitcher-with-a-hit-in-2020/.

4 To provide some semblance of normalcy for teams playing in empty ballparks, crowd noise was broadcast over the ballpark’s sound system, attempting to provide appropriate response to field action, and several hundred cutouts of plastic posterboard were placed in the seats behind the plate and toward first and third base. Funds were raised for charity by fans who donated a significant sum so they could be present at Fenway Park, if only in this fashion. For an amusing story of a “fan” who made his way onto the field, see Ryan Homler, “Nats-Red Sox features 2020 version of a fan on the field,” NBCSports.com, August 30, 2020, https://www.nbcsports.com/washington/nationals/nationals-red-sox-features-2020-version-fan-field.

5 His most active year has been 2018, with a record of 5-15 and an ERA of 4.90; the Orioles as a team had a record of 47-115 that year.

6 Julian McWilliams, “Fenway Slate Finishes with Baltimore Flop,” Boston Globe, September 25, 2020: C2.

7 Jon Meoli, “Cobb Dominates in Rout,” Baltimore Sun, September 25, 2020: 12. Thanks to Laura Peebles for the Sun citation.

8 Both errors were throwing errors at shortstop, both in the August 13 game, a 6-3 win over the Phillies. 

9 Lin signed with the Minnesota Twins for 2021 but appeared only briefly in one late April game. Through the 2024 season, he had not returned to the major leagues.