Red Sox - 200 020 001 - 5 10 1 Blue Jays - 211 031 00x - 8 12 0Apparently, you can't win them all.
By the time the 2018 season comes to an end, I think Mookie Betts will have done just about everything you can do on a baseball field*. He was the bright spot in Thursday night's loss when he became the first Red Sox player in three seasons to hit for the cycle. Betts is the only player to hit for the cycle in the majors this year.
Betts grounded a single into left field to begin the game, tripled to deep center in the second inning (Kevin Pillar leapt at the wall and crumpled to the dirt), doubled to the base of the left field wall in the fourth, walked in the sixth, and homered in the ninth (after fouling off a pitch he felt he should have smashed).
Brock Holt had been the last Red Sox player hit for the cycle, on June 16, 2015, against Atlanta. (Like Betts, Holt batted leadoff.)
*: And off the field, as he announced he will be a father later this year, probably around the time he's named World Series MVP.
Is there a name (cutesy or otherwise) for hitting for the cycle and drawing a walk? There should be.
From 1908 to now, 20 Red Sox players have hit for the cycle, but only four have also drawn a walk:
Leon Culberson, July 3, 1943Eduardo Nunez had three hits and J.D. Martinez hit his 35th home run. Other than that, there was not much to cheer about. Rick Porcello did not have a good evening: 4-6-7-3-5, 79.
Lou Clinton, July 13, 1962
Carl Yastrzemski, May 14, 1965
Mookie Betts, August 9, 2018
I did not watch much of this game (although I did see Mookie's home run). I spent the afternoon with longtime JoS reader Jake Of All Trades (and his partner) drinking beer and talking about the Red Sox, books, travel, writing, and dogs. They attended both of the Red Sox's wins in this series and - at roughly the same time tonight's game ended - pulled out of Toronto on a train to Vancouver!
Betts, RFIn his last five games, Craig Kimbrel has allowed six hits, five walks, and five runs - in only 5.1 innings - with opposing hitters bashing away to a 1.112 OPS. He has also blown two saves and yet the Red Sox are 5-0 in those games. Pitching coach Dana LeVangie thinks he may have found the problem.
Benintendi, LF
Pearce, 1B
Martinez, DH
Bogaerts, SS
Nunez, 3B
Holt, 2B
Leon, C
Bradley, CF
AL East: TEX/MFY, 7 PM.
5 comments:
Like you I was "with friends" tonight. I missed everything. Was not checking the score or anything. We got in the car at 11:00 I put on EEI just in case the game was still going. Commercial ended, and the sports update was coming on. So I knew it was over. We got the bad news, but then they mention the cycle. Woohoo! Even cooler, that Mookie did it IN ORDER! Single, double, triple, homer. Amazing. Just got home and came to your site--hmm, Allan isn't using the term "natural cycle," that's odd, I thought... Then I looked closer to find you said it WASN'T in order. I checked one other site to break the tie, and it looks like they and you had it right. Not a natural cycle.
So how in the WORLD did the top-of-the-hour sports report--on the station that broadcasted the game minutes earlier--get this wrong??
Single, double, triple, homer.
Single, triple, double, walk, homer. . . .
The "cycle-who-walks"
Chad Jennings, The Athletic:
Brock Holt walked into the Red Sox clubhouse on Thursday night and immediately went into a woe-is-me act. Contrived despair dripped from his every word as Holt went to his locker, gathered his things, and headed for the showers.
"It's the one thing I had!" he cried.
For three years, one month and 24 days, Holt was the last Red Sox player to hit for the cycle, but not anymore. ...
"I guess I can say I'm still the last left-handed (Red Sox) hitter to hit for the cycle," Holt said. "And once a lefty hits it, I'll say the last left-handed hitter who hit for the cycle against [Atlanta], and I'll just keep it going."
***
A cycle with a stolen base could be a "motor-cycle"?
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