G86: Red Sox 4, Nationals 3

Red Sox   - 030 000 100 - 4  7  0
Nationals - 000 101 010 - 3  9  0

Rick Porcello stepped in against his friend and former teammate Max Scherzer with two outs in the top of the second. The Nationals had intentionally walked Jackie Bradley to load the bases. Porcello's career batting average was .156 (5-for-32) and his only two RBI came way back on June 12, 2009, in the 12th start of his rookie season and his first game as a major league hitter.

Porcello swung and missed two pitches before driving a 96 mph fastball over the head of left fielder Juan Soto. The ball took two hops to the wall and all three runners scored. Porcello could not suppress a wide grin as he stood on second base, knowing he had increased his career RBI total by 150% with his first extra-base hit.

The Nationals got two of those runs back off Porcello (6-7-2-2-5, 92) on solo home runs from Rendon and Murphy. Mookie Betts's 21st dong of the season upped Boston's lead to 4-3. Bryce Harper's bomb to right-center cut the lead to 4-3, but Joe Kelly, who had surrendered it, stayed steady and Craig Kimbrel pitched a four-out save.

(Betts's homer was estimated at 430 feet. Harper obliterated the ball and it was announced at 439. This one example tells me that these distances are bullshit. Like Manny Ramirez's moonshot to left many years ago at Fenway Park was announced as 501 feet, suspiciously one foot shy of Ted Williams's team record.)

The Yankees lost leads of 1-0 and 2-1 and fell to Atlanta 5-3 in 11 innings. The Red Sox (57-29) are 1 GA.

This was only the second time (in 18 starts) that Scherzer (6-4-3-3-9, 108) allowed more than two earned runs. He breezed through the first inning on 11 pitches, but Mitch Moreland lined a single to center in the second. With one out, Scherzer hit Brock Holt near the left knee with a pitch. Sandy Leon struck out and the Nats put Bradley on. Porcello then showed that having a DH in both leagues would deny fans the thrill of seeing pitchers come up with huge hits.

Washington ran themselves out of a potential scoring opportunity in the bottom of the second. Daniel Murphy singled with one out and then tried to go to third when Wilmer Difo singled to right. It was a bone-head decision because Betts fielded the ball in short right and Murphy was just back from an injury. Mookie's strong, one-hop throw was to the left field side of the bag, but Rafael Devers still had time to reach for it and dive back towards the runner.

Scherzer drilled Xander Bogaerts to open the third and Holt's two-out single put runners at first and third. Scherzer got Leon to pop to center on his 35th pitch of the inning. His pitch count was then at 73 (11-27-35).

In the bottom of the ninth, Kimbrel struck out Adam Eaton and got Trea Turner to fly to right. Kimbrel's 2-1 pitch to Turner was too low, but plate umpire Jerry Layne called it a strike. (Dave O'Brien called it "a dandy" on NESN, even as the on-scren pitch tracker showed it well out of the strike zone.) With two outs, Kimbrel faced Soto and was ahead 0-2. His next pitch was over the plate and maybe six inches higher than the pitch Layne had called a strike only a few minutes earlier. This pitch was actually in the strike zone - and Layne called it a ball.

Kimbrel threw two more balls, Soto fouled a pitch off, and Kimbrel threw ball 4. Rendon watched three pitches out of the zone - and I could easily imagine the Nationals winning this game because of Layne's fuck-up. But Rendon swung on 3-0 and lined out to Andrew Benintendi in left for the final out.

Here are both pitches as shown by NESN's pitch tracker (pitch #4 in both cases):

Note: These were two consecutive calls by Layne. The pitches in between them were: foul, fly out to right, swinging strike, swinging strike, foul.

For a clearer view of how badly Layne screwed up, here is BrooksBaseball:

Turner:

Soto:

And for anyone thinking Layne might have realized his mistake (as far as the batter was concerned) and corrected it with a make-up call, that would be completely unacceptable. If you make an obvious mistake, you don't go out and make more obvious mistakes in the hopes that someone will forget the original one.

Fortunately, Layne's incompetence did not cost the Red Sox a win.

Rick Porcello / Max Scherzer

Betts, RF
Benintendi, LF
Bogaerts, SS
Moreland, 1B
Devers, 3B
Holt, 2B
Leon, C
Bradley, CF
Porcello, P

Scherzer has a 2.04 ERA in 17 starts. He has allowed more than two earned runs only once this year. (Eddie Matz, ESPN: "Max Scherzer swears he's normal. The evidence points to the contrary.")

Factoid: The Nationals have been shut out in three of his last four starts.

A bit more on David Price:

Jen McCaffrey, The Athletic:

According to The Athletic's Katie Sharp on Twitter, Price became the only pitcher in baseball history to have three career games against the Yankees of fewer than four innings pitched and eight-plus earned runs allowed.

It looks like Sharp pointed this out at River Avenue Blues, not Twitter. Regardless, here is the list of those pitchers since 1908.

Sean McAdam, Boston Sports Journal:

Price spent the last few weeks not-to-subtly mocking the narrative that he's not tough enough to pitch in big spots, sarcastically labeling himself "soft" while mocking the notion that he wasn't tough enough in big spots. He did so almost dripping with condescension, as if that suggestion was the most ludicrous explanation possible for his travails.

But it's hard to think otherwise, given the body of evidence. ...

[I]t's becoming increasingly obvious this is A Thing, and will remain so until Price demonstrates otherwise.

AL East: Atlanta/MFY, 7 PM. The Red Sox and Yankees are tied for first place.