May 25: 14-2 at Cleveland May 26: 14-1 at Tigers June 10: 16-4 at Blue Jays June 11: 14-1 at Blue JaysBack on May 27, I posted the complete list of Boston's back-to-back 14+ run games. This weekend's routs were the first time the Red Sox had done it to the same team in 58 years.
Red Sox - 102 063 001 - 14 17 0 Blue Jays - 000 100 000 - 1 2 0The Red Sox battered the Jays for the second day in a row, sweeping the three-game series by a combined score of 35-6 (and out-hitting them 46-12). Today's rout was Boston's ninth consecutive win. They are 6-0 on the current road trip -- and have scored 10+ runs in three of their last five games -- and now head to Tampa Bay for three games, beginning on Tuesday.
Red Sox - 004 171 030 - 16 18 0 Blue Jays - 000 202 000 - 4 6 0A team effort!
Red Sox - 002 020 001 - 5 11 2 Blue Jays - 000 100 000 - 1 4 1An extra two days of rest did Buchholz's back a world of good. "Tonight I wasn't favoring it. I was able to get some good extension on pitches I needed to be extended on. It definitely felt a little different than it has the last couple of starts." (Buchholz did contend with a blister on his right middle finger, which he said felt like a splinter.)
Buchholz is pitching for the first time since June 3 because of a sore lower back. He is coming off two rough starts (10.2 IP, 14 H, 8 ER) ...With Derek Jeter 10 hits away from becoming the 28th player in history to reach 3,000 hits, B-Ref has posted a list of the 42 players who have reached base more than 4,000 times. ... Wow, Pete Rose batted 15,861 times, nearly 2,000 more times than the runner-up (Yaz, 13,991).
The Sox have won six straight, 11 of 15 and 22 of 30. ... David Ortiz has hit safely in nine straight at 16 of 34 (.471) with nine extra-base hits and 12 RBIs. ... Jacoby Ellsbury has hit safely in 13 of 14 games at .390 (23 of 59) with eight stolen bases, nine extra-base hits and 10 RBIs. ...
Adrian Gonzalez has driven in at least one run in six consecutive games, matching the longest such streak of his career.
After dropping the first two games against the Red Sox this week, players arrived at the Stadium Thursday night to find a piece of paper on each of their chairs - one containing a message of togetherness and inspiration:Joel Sherman, Post:
"A championship team is a group of individuals that has committed themselves to handle all the highs and lows throughout the season, knowing the ultimate goal of winning comes from each and every one and more importantly, together as a team." ...
"It's frustrating to lose five games in a row to the Red Sox, your biggest foe," Joe Girardi said before the game. "We need to win, that's the bottom line. We need to win a game. There's a lot of pride in that room. You don't like having your pride put down." ...
"We need to win every day we take the field," [Brian] Cashman said. "We're trying to fight for a W. They've had their way with us for a few days and we need to push back and win back."
It didn't happen.
Joe Girardi opened his pregame news conference yesterday by saying, "I have some bad news and then I have some positive news."
Joba Chamberlain has a torn elbow ligament that almost certainly will necessitate season-ending Tommy John surgery and Phil Hughes had thrown two strong innings in a simulated game.
Girardi certainly needs to work on his proportionality. Hey, a planet-ending asteroid is hurtling toward earth, but on the positive side my last meal was splendid.
The Yankees day opened with terrible news about Joba Chamberlain's damaged right elbow.
And didn't improve.
That's because ace CC Sabathia spit out a late lead against the Red Sox ...
Through six frames Sabathia threw 82 pitches and faced just three batters with runners in scoring position.
Eleven batters later the Red Sox had a 7-2 lead and what was left of the crowd was howling.
Babe Ruth was a 17-year-old pitching prodigy at the St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys. The Red Sox had yet to win a World Series, and the Yankees did not exist. They were still called the Highlanders, playing not in the Bronx but in Manhattan, at Hilltop Park and the Polo Grounds.
The Red Sox won all 10 games in New York during that 1912 season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. But over the last 99 years of their rivalry, they had yet to win as many as six in a row. ... It took almost a century, but the Red Sox snapped that streak in the early hours of Friday morning, stunning the Yankees, 8-3.
The Red Sox have turned the normally hostile grounds of Yankee Stadium into their personal playground.Tim Smith, Daily News:
For the second time in less than a month, Boston has departed the Bronx with a three-game sweep. ...
The Red Sox are the first team to win six games in a row at the new Yankee Stadium, and this is the first time they've taken six consecutive road games from New York since 1912. It's also the first time since '12 that the Sox have swept two road series against the Yankees in one season.
[T]he pillars of the team - the things that they thought were strengths coming into the season - are shaken.
There is nothing warm and fuzzy about that feeling that your bullpen is missing the seventh-inning guy and the eighth-inning guy and the bridges to your sure-thing closer, Mariano Rivera, are as shaky as your theories on the care and feeding of young pitchers. ...
[Sabathia] served as the big enforcer when he nailed David Ortiz in the thigh with a fastball in the fourth inning ... [I]t was what they needed most from one of their strongest performers. It will reverberate long after this series is over. ...
The theory that hitting David Ortiz with a pitch might make him uncomfortable has been floating around this town for years?Matt Fortuna, MLB.com:
Better come up with a new plan. ...
Since Ortiz began tormenting the Yankees in 2003, there has been an idea that he is too comfortable in the batter's box an drilling him might change that.
Ortiz disproved that theory by getting two hits in the seventh inning, starting and finishing the Red Sox's seven-run rally in that inning.
[A]s Thursday gave way to Friday, and as Ortiz recovered from a hit-by-pitch, the all-too-familiar scene of the Red Sox celebrating in the Bronx became inevitable. ...Mike Lupica, Daily News:
Ortiz led off the inning with a single and recorded the Red Sox's eighth and final hit of the frame a short while later with a two-run double, this after hitting homers on Tuesday and Wednesday. He finished the series with four hits, four runs scored and six RBIs.
Of course you don't judge the Yankees on the 13-13 baseball they have played lately anymore than you judge the Red Sox on that 2-10 start that seems to have happened to them a lifetime ago. But right after the Yankees win six of their last seven on the West Coast, they look like crash dummies against the Boston Red Sox.Surviving Grady:
Again. ...
Making their fans worry more than ever about the rotation, the bullpen, the lack of a bench, the general age of the baseball team.
And Now This Brief But Important Message from Puppet Red to the New York Yankees
Red Sox - 000 000 701 - 8 12 1 Yankees - 200 000 001 - 3 6 1
How as Ortiz's ability to hit lefthanders affected the lineup this season?AL East: Blue Jays/Royals at 4 PM.
It does a couple of things. One, it lets me answer a heck of a lot less questions. ...
That knee has been actually kind of sore, it was sore last year. ... It's been nagging at him a lot of this year. ... There's a difference between having your knee ache or hurt as opposed to maybe putting yourself in a place you don't want to. ... I fully expect he'll be hitting second tomorrow. ... We just want to make sure it's OK. ... He's got a little bit of a cartilage issue in there. We've known that for a long time. ... If that gets in the way, then you need to ... we just want to look at it and make sure.
[T]he onus was on A.J. Burnett Wednesday night to stop this Red Sox carnage against the Yankees this year. "It's important for A.J. to give us distance," the manager understated before the game.Mark Feinsand, Daily News:
Presumably the 400-foot, two-run homer Ortiz deposited into the right-center field seats in the first inning was the not the sort of distance to which Girardi was referring. ...
There was no David Ortiz bat flip and no Yankee retaliation Wednesday night at the Stadium, just another Red Sox rout in which the Bombers showed little fight and even less resistance. ...Burnett Against Boston
This is the first time the Yankees have gone winless in their first five home games against the Red Sox since 1913. ...
Burnett was pounded for eight runs (seven earned) on seven hits and four walks in 5.2 innings, falling to 0-4 with an 8.71 ERA in eight starts against Boston since joining the Yankees after the 2008 season.
GS IP H R ER BB K HR ERA W-L with Blue Jays 8 56.1 44 18 16 21 53 6 2.56 5-0 with Yankees 8 41.1 52 47 40 26 33 10 8.71 0-4
Burnett was asked to pitch big Wednesday night and got roughed up in the first and then again in the fourth and looked small enough to be riding at Belmont on Saturday.Joel Sherman, Post:
[The Yankees'] ability to beat the Red Sox has disintegrated ... The Yankees are a second-place team now ... Heck, they are just 4.5 games ahead of last-place Baltimore in the congested AL East. ...
On nights like last night, when the Yankees needed Burnett most and he gave them the least, it was yet another reminder he is a heartbreaker. Despite all the propaganda of a new/improved Burnett, he crumbled once again at the sight of the Red Sox, and collapsed once more when a stand was needed against adversity. ...
This time, the Yankees didn't have to endure a celebratory gesture, just the sharp pain that another two-run homer by David Ortiz inflicted. ...
Ortiz didn't seem to anticipate any retaliation.
"Why should I?" he said. "I don't care about what Joe Girardi says, man."
If Burnett is ever going to mean anything to the Yankees, he has to get over his Red Sox demons. ...
Amazingly, Burnett doesn’t even accept the reality of the Red Sox situation. ... "I'm not in Toronto anymore so I'm tired of hearing that. That’s just retarded. ..."
Oh, really. Of the 11 times in his career Burnett has allowed at least eight runs, four have come against the Red Sox. ...
To make matters worse, Burnett had the chance to make a statement against David Ortiz in the first inning, but once again allowed Big Papi to get the best of the Yankees with a rocket two-run home run into right-center. ...
Burnett came into the game having allowed three earned runs or less in nine of his previous 12 starts, but none of those starts were against the Red Sox. ...
It's one thing for overachieving Freddy Garcia to melt down against Boston. It's another for the underachieving Burnett to once again turn into a puddle of goo.
Brett Gardner's mental lapse ruined what might have been a big inning Wednesday night, and the Yankees never recovered from his blunder.Mark Hale, Post:
With the bases loaded in the sixth inning and the Yankees trailing by three, Alfredo Aceves' wild pitch went past the catcher and off the wall ... But the team's fastest player hesitated with one out, saying he thought the pitch hit Derek Jeter. ...
Gardner would have scored even if Jeter was hit by the pitch, leaving him no reason to hesitate. ...
Jeter punctuated the missed opportunity by grounding into a double play two pitches later, just as the crowd was starting to believe the Yankees could climb out of the 7-0 hole.
Career hit No. 2,990 could have been huge for Derek Jeter.
Instead, a huge sixth-inning at-bat turned into a double play that helped seal the Yankees' fate in last night's 11-6 loss to the Red Sox. ...
[Jeter] has been brutal in the clutch this season, with last night offering further evidence. ... For the year, Jeter's hitting a miserable .167 (10-for-60) with runners in scoring position.
Joba Chamberlain became the latest member of the Bombers bullpen to land on the disabled list, sidelined by a strained flexor tendon in his elbow. ... [H]e's likely to miss at least a month overall. ...
Chamberlain has been receiving treatment for the elbow for nearly two weeks, and while he pitched only three times during the Yankees' nine-game West Coast trip, two of the three games featured his highest pitch counts of the season, including a baffling 35-pitch outing on Sunday. ...
Girardi dismissed the idea that the 35-pitch inning had anything to do with Chamberlain's trip to the DL ... Girardi went against his standard rules for relievers three weeks ago, pitching Chamberlain on three straight days May 15-17. Based on the timeline given by Girardi and Chamberlain, his problems began shortly after that period.
I know I have damage in there already [Lackey had issues with the elbow in 2009], so you never know for sure. But every pitcher will find something. Some of us just got a little more than others. ... It's going to get worse eventually, but the shot got the swelling down so things aren't hitting against each other. ... It's probably going to be something I have to stay on top of.Tommy John Surgery Calendar:
Rich Hill - Thursday, June 9, Pensacola, Florida, Dr. James AndrewsAnthony Rizzo, one of the players the Red Sox traded to San Diego for Adrian Gonzalez, will be in the Padres' lineup tomorrow against the Nationals' Livan Hernandez. Rizzo, 21, has been destroying AAA pitching in Tucson. In 52 games, he's batting .365 with 16 homers, 20 doubles, 63 RBI, and a 1.159 OPS.
Daisuke Matsuzaka - Friday, June 10, Los Angeles, California, Dr. Lewis Yocum
Dustin Pedroia will return to Boston tomorrow to have his right knee examined and is facing the possibility of surgery that would sideline him for at least a month.WTF?!?!?!?
Pedroia was injured on May 16 when he fell on his knee fielding a ball against the Orioles [the first play of the game when Brian Roberts lined a ball off Daisuke Matsuzaka's chest]. He described the procedure, which will be done at Massachusetts General Hospital, as a "needle with a camera on it" that will determine the extent of the damage.
If necessary, Pedroia would then have the surgery immediately. ... Pedroia's lack of production at the plate is likely attributable to his knee and surgically repaired left foot. ... Pedroia is hitting .247 with a .338 on-base percentage. ...
Pedroia heading back to Boston tomorrow bec of rt knee. Pedroia: "I'm not having surgery. I'm going to get it checked."Rob Bradford, WEEI/Twitter, 11:45 PM:
Surgery not a likely scenario for Pedroia. Very good possibility he is in the lineup Friday in Toronto. Precautionary.Rob Bradford, WEEI/Twitter, 11:56 PM:
RE Pedroia: Want to reiterate, surgery is not likely. While knee is same that had structural issues last season, this injury is not related.Edes was on Baseball Tonight tonight and suggests Pedroia will have an arthroscopy.
The Boston Globe reported on its website Wednesday night that Pedroia could require surgery that would sideline him a month. Asked about that possibility, Pedroia replied in a text message: "I'm not having surgery. I'm going to get it checked." A team source refuted the assertion that Pedroia needs surgery. "He's getting it checked, that's all," the source said.
Red Sox - 310 301 003 - 11 11 0 Yankees - 000 131 001 - 6 9 2The Red Sox struck for three first-inning runs for the second night in a row - David Ortiz's two-run bomb to right-center (sans bat flip) was the big blow - and clobbered the Yankees, taking sole possession of first place.
That's the most Wakefield has faced any batter and the most Jeter has faced any pitcher. ... They first met on July 15, 1996 at Fenway Park. ... Every other player who got in that game has retired.Abraham did not provide a link to the results of those 127 meetings, so I will do it.
My shoulder started to feel better. I started feeling it [in] my back a little more. ... I'm not overly concerned, but at the same time it hasn't gotten any better. ... It never really really goes away. ... I haven't really felt anything too sharp. More like a dull ache. ... There's no reason not to [get an MRI], just for everybody's peace of mind.In the five games since May 29, Lowrie is 4-for-21 (.190/.261/.238).
It's an injury that happened years and years ago. Unfortunately it still gives me little fits every now and then. Everything is fine, once it cooled down and the muscle started relaxing.
The second part of Smoke & Mirrors shattered last night at Yankee Stadium and then David Ortiz dragged a shard of glass across the Yankees' throats.John Harper, Daily News:
During the first two months of the season, the Yankees hit the jackpot with Bartolo "Smoke" Colon and Freddy "Mirrors" Garcia, aging right-handers who exceeded every expectation by even the biggest Yankees supporter. ...
As Ortiz left the batter's box, he flipped his bat and it didn't go unnoticed.
"He took a long time getting out of the box and you never want someone to do that to you," catcher Russell Martin said. "It's up to us to do that back at them. ... He almost got hit by the [previous] pitch and kind of rubbed it in our faces."
Joe Girardi is no pacifist. He fumes when Yankee players get plunked, even when he knows it isn't intentional. So you kept thinking that somebody was going to pay for Mark Teixeira getting drilled in the knee ...Kevin Kernan, Post:
And when David Ortiz punctuated a moon-shot home run with a showy bat flip in the fifth inning in giving the Sox a 6-1 lead, well, I would have bet the ranch that fireworks were coming at some point.
I mean, I know everybody loves Big Papi, but he showed up a kid pitcher, Hector Noesi ...
This was an issue during the Joe Torre years, the Yankees never making Ortiz or the Red Sox pay for their transgressions. But Girardi is much more of a hard-liner than Torre.
I still think fireworks are coming.
David Ortiz' majestic bat flip ... didn't go over well with the Yankees manager.
"I didn't really care for it," Girardi said.
Ortiz couldn't care less about the criticism.
"It's not my first time. It's not going to be my last time. So, big deal. I'm a home run hitter. ... What can I tell you? ... I just went deep. It's another homer for Papi. That was one of the Papi good ones." ...
It's 2004 all over again. ... At some point, the Yankees are going to have to beat the Red Sox and they will have to solve their Gonzalez and Ortiz problem.
Even though the Red Sox got off to that dreadful 2-10 start they have bounced back. The Yankees might have to go into wild-card mode as October gets closer. Right now, the Rivalry belongs to the Red Sox ...
This time the Red Sox, who just look better than the Yankees right now, jumped them early at Yankee Stadium, came right back at them with more bad intentions. ...Mark Hale, Post:
The last time the two teams played ... the Red Sox were still under .500 and the Yankees could have dropped a safe on them with a sweep of their own. Didn't do it. This time when the Red Sox come in here, they are going good. Very good. Maybe good from now on. ...
One more negative on a long, negative night for the Yankees ... a game where it seemed the Yankees had been behind the Red Sox forever. ...
Bad night, bad trend.
Freddy Garcia didn't adjust many things during his outing last night.Mike Vaccaro, Post:
"[It was] too short to make any adjustments," he said. ...
Garcia posted the shortest start by a Yankee not because of injury in more than two years [May 9, 2009] ... It was not the first time Garcia has been shelled by the Sox this season. On May 15, he was lit up for five runs (four earned) on six hits, two walks and two homers in 5.1 innings. In his two starts against Boston this season, he's 0-2 with a 10.29 ERA, allowing 15 baserunners via a hit or walk and giving up three homers.
Freddy Garcia could tell early on that it was going to be one of the longest short nights -- or was it one of the shortest long nights? -- of his career. ...Mark Feinsand, Daily News:
Bad night at the big yard for Garcia. Bad night in the big rivalry for the Yankees. ... Garcia was only around for five outs worth, by which time it was already 4-1, by which time you could already sense a buzz traveling around the ballpark. ...
This is June, and the Yankees are still in first place despite Garcia's session of live batting practice last night, and they are there in large part because the replacements in that elaborate scheme -- Garcia, Bartolo Colon, Ivan Nova -- have played up, some to an almost otherworldly degree. ...
The question, of course, is how legitimate the arms really are. ... June's rotation still has a few more questions. They have been camouflaged for most of the season. The Red Sox merely drew them out in the open last night. They will stay there awhile.
The Yankees' bad luck against the Red Sox continued Tuesday night, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. ...Kristie Ackert, Roger Rubin, Sean Brennan and Peter Botte, Daily News:
The [Teixeira negative] X-ray results were the only encouraging developments for the Yankees ... The Yankees have lost all four games to the Red Sox at the Stadium this year - leaving them in a virtual tie for first place in the American League East.
[Papelbon's] day ended with him allowing a run but collecting his 12th save, making him the fastest player to reach 200 career saves.Of Papelbon's 58 minor league games, 48 were starts. And he debuted with the Red Sox as a starting pitcher (July 31, August 16 and 21, 2005).
Papelbon did it in 359 games; Mariano Rivera had the previous mark of 382 games, but unlike Papelbon, he started his career as a starter and then a set-up man.
Red Sox - 310 020 000 - 6 7 0 Yankees - 100 020 001 - 4 9 0
W L PCT GB RS RA DIFF PYTH
Yankees 33 24 .579 --- 293 222 + 71 36-21
Red Sox 33 26 .559 1.0 290 262 + 28 32-27
Rays 31 29 .517 3.5 248 238 + 10 31-29
Blue Jays 30 30 .500 4.5 292 265 + 27 33-27
orioles 27 31 .466 6.5 233 276 - 43 25-33PYTH is each team's expected record, based on their runs scored and runs allowed.Boston Red Sox reliever Jonathan Papelbon has been suspended for three games and fined an undisclosed amount for his inappropriate actions, which included making contact with home plate umpire Tony Randazzo, during the top of the ninth inning of his Club's Saturday, June 4th game against the Oakland Athletics at Fenway Park. ...
Papelbon's suspension was scheduled to begin being served during Boston's game tonight against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, but he has elected to appeal. Thus, his suspension will be held in abeyance until the process is complete.
[W]e felt like some things broke our way, and we were able to get four players we feel really good about. Two high school [players], two college [players], two pitchers, two hitters. The hitters are up-the-middle guys with strong defensive tools and bats that we really like. Both pitchers we feel project as starters in the big leagues. We're real happy with how it went.Sadly, Barnes says his favourite player is Joba Chamberlain. ... Links: SoSH threads on each player, Sox Prospects posts, and Full Count's wrap-up.
If I were really cynical I would say he just made up his mind, he's going to get his elbow cleared out, and then he'll come back in 2013 in Japan. ... He had put it out in Japan that he was going to have Tommy John surgery before he even got to Los Angeles. I find it very odd. ...Jerry Remy said the same thing on the Dennis & Callahan show:
He did help get them the World Series and pitched well in Game 3 of the World Series in Colorado. ... [A]t times he was a pretty good pitcher, his first two years. ... He never performed as well as the expectations surrounding him. I don't think he really made a great effort to adjust to this culture. ... One of his agents said to me, he doesn't trust people. ...
They allowed him to do everything he wanted to do at first, and it wasn't working. ... It was exasperating, him going out and throwing hard for forty minutes at 3:30 in the afternoon before a start at 7 or 8.
Communication-wise, pitching-wise, it's just been a bumpy road all the way through. I think that once he's gone for a couple of years, nobody will remember Daisuke. ... He had his own set way of doing things ... They tried and tried and tried to change the way he did things, and he was stubborn about it.
Tuesday: Jon Lester / Freddy GarciaDavid Ortiz was named the American League Player of the Week after he went 12-for-22 (.545/.583/1.000) with four doubles, two homers, six RBI, and five runs scored. In the last four weeks, three Boston players - Ortiz, Adrian Gonzalez, and Carl Crawford - have been named AL PotW.
Wednesday: Tim Wakefield / A.J. Burnett
Thursday: Josh Beckett / CC Sabathia
I'm trying to go to the plate with an idea. It's making sense right now. ... Lefties, you have to wait for the ball to get to you with pretty much all of them. I'm a pull hitter and pulling everything against lefties wasn't working for me. We'll see. Got a long way to go still.On The Shuttle: Josh Reddick was sent back to Pawtucket when John Lackey returned from the disabled list. Marco Scutaro (strained left oblique) went 5-for-11 in a three-game weekend rehab stint with Pawtucket, and will likely rejoin the team in New York, with Scott Atchison heading down. Darnell McDonald is also rehabbing with the PawSox (8-for-16 in his last five games) and is eligible to return on Friday.
Until Tim Wakefield (195-173 lifetime) wins five more games, we'll find ourselves in a unique time in baseball history - because the active leader in wins has yet to win his 200th game. So when was the last time that happened? Believe it or not, loyal reader Eric Lee reports, it was 1879. And there was a better excuse back then - since it was Season No. 4 in the life of some newfangled invention called "the major leagues."
Athletics - 001 101 000 - 3 5 0 Red Sox - 030 201 00x - 6 12 0Lackey (5.2-3-3-2-2, 93) did his job, Carl Crawford hit a three-run bomb (#5) in the second, Adrian Gonzalez followed with a two-run dong (#12) in the fourth, and David Ortiz and Jarrod Saltalamacchia both went 3-for-4 as the Red Sox swept a three-game series from the A's.
I felt like some of the pitches that I was not getting were strikes, and then I threw one that I felt like was a ball [to Sweeney] and then he called it a strike. I'm more or less just trying to get Salty out there and say, "Come talk to me, let's figure out this zone so I know how to go about this." I had no idea what his zone was. I guess [Randazzo] may have jumped to the conclusion that I was talking to him. I felt he threw his arms up in the air for no reason. Then everything unfolded the way it did. ...Saltalamacchia agreed:
When he threw up his arms and started barking at me, I said, "Tony, I'm not even talking to you, I'm talking to my catcher." I guess he felt like I may have been coming back at him or I may have been showing him up.
[Papelbon] was talking to me and then [Randazzo] kind of turned around and walked away, and then I don't know what happened after that. He just kind of jumped out behind me and started talking to Pap. ... I don't think there was any reason for [the ejection]. Pap had already turned around and walked the other way. I think [the ump] should have just left it at that and moved on.Crew Chief Brian Gorman refused to comment.
Athletics - 000 002 104 010 00 - 8 14 0 Red Sox - 100 013 020 010 01 - 9 18 1J.D. Drew, who had struck out in his previous four at-bats, lined a single to right-center with two outs in the fourteenth inning, scoring Carl Crawford (4-for-7, and 3 RBI) with the winning run. The hit came on the 495th pitch of the afternoon.