G37: Atlanta 7, Red Sox 5

Atlanta - 030 002 110 - 7 10  0
Red Sox - 300 110 000 - 5  7  1

Adam Duvall hit three home runs and knocked in five as Atlanta finished up a three-game sweep of the Red Sox. This came the day after Marcell Ozuna went deep three times and drove in six, making Duvall and Ozuna the only teammates in MLB history with three-homer nights in consecutive games. (Ozuna also hit a bomb in tonight's game.)

It's also the first time in MLB history that two visiting players have each hit four or more home runs at Fenway Park in a three-game series. In 1966, Boog Powell (Orioles) and Mickey Mantle (MFY) did it, but they obviously played on different teams.

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig hit three home runs on successive days (May 21-22, 1930), but there were doubleheaders involved, so their games were not consecutive. On May 21, Ruth hit three home runs in Game 1; no Yankees homered in Game 2. On May 22, Ruth hit two homers in Game 1 and one in Game 2, but Gehrig was the star of the "nightcap" with three bombs and eight RBI (New York won 20-13; there were 10 home runs hit in the game, five by each side. Ten pitchers worked in the game and they all gave up at least one run.).

Interesting. Could that be a record for most pitchers giving up a run in one game? Let's hustle over to B-Ref's Stathead and find out. Searching under "Find Number of Players Matching Criteria in a Game", we find that . . .

. . . it is not. The record is 12, set by the Giants/Padres on May 23, 1970 and the Mets/Atlanta on July 4, 1985. But wait! . . . Both of those games went into extra innings! The Padres won 17-16 in 15 innings and the Mets won 16-13 in 19 innings (an amazing linescore).

What is the record for a nine-inning affair? There are 20 games in which 11 different pitchers allowed at least one run. Adjusting our search to include only games of nine innings, we get:

A list of nine games, the last being the Diamondbacks/Rockies game of June 24, 2016. (Actually, the last two times this has happened have been Diamondbacks/Rockies games.)

The Red Sox/White Sox game of July 5, 1998 is one of the nine games. (The Red Sox have also been involved in two of the 22 games with 10 such pitchers: May 9, 1927 and August 17, 2008.)

And among those nine games, the Cleveland/Texas game of June 3, 2008 had 11 pitchers and they all allowed run(s), so the 1930 games cannot lay claim to having a record of 10 pitchers in a game, who all gave up runs.

Okay . . . where were we?

Right, dismal 2020. . . . Duvall hit his taters off three different Red Sox pitchers: a two-run shot in the second off Mike Kickham (3-5-3-0-0, 48), a two-run blast off Andrew Triggs (3-3-3-0-3, 47) in the sixth, and a solo smash off Ryan Brasier (1-1-1-1-1, 22) in the eighth.

The Red Sox led 2-0 in the first inning before making an out. Alex Verdugo walked on four pitches and scored on Rafael Devers's first-pitch double to center. Then Xander Bogaerts walked on four pitches. Atlanta held a conference to see tell Robbie Erlin to throw some fucking strikes. He did, but J.D. Martinezhit one of them to center for another double and a 2-0 Boston lead. A third run scored on Michael Chavis's sac fly.

So that was fun. But then Austin Riley doubled and Duvall homered. Three more singles tied the game at 3-3.

Jackie Bradley's home run in the fourth and singles by Verdugo, Devers, and JDM in the fifth gave the Red Sox a 5-3 lead. But like the 3-0 lead in the first, this advantage also quickly vanished. Travis d'Arnaud singled and Duvall hit a two-run homer to left-center.

Bradley singled to start the sixth and stole second with one out, but was left on base. The Red Sox went in order in the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings, with Mark Melancon striking out the side in the ninth. Damn. Why can't we get pitchers like that?

Robbie Erlin / Robinson Leyer

Verdugo, RF
Devers, 3B
Bogaerts, SS
Martinez, LF
Plawecki, C
Chavis, DH
Bradley, CF
Dalbec, 1B
Peraza, 2B

Robinson Leyer (#77) made his major league debut in the first game of this series, pitching the sixth inning against Atlanta on Monday (1-2-1-1-1, 26). Lefty Mike Kickham had originally been slated to start.

Andrew Benintendi, who strained the right side of his rib cage on August 11, is likely done for the season. Manager Ron Roenicke:

He's still a ways away. He's still on a treadmill; he's doing some incline walking. He's better sleeping now. He doesn't have as much pain as he did before. But it's still there. Any rotational activities, it's still painful. Unfortunately, this thing is slow like we thought it possibly could be ...

Benintendi batted only .103 (4-for-39) in 14 games, but walked 11 times for a .314 OBP.

‘I made it this far. Might as well become a free agent.’

— Alex Speier (@alexspeier) September 2, 2020