Victories in pitching duels have come far and few between for the Boston Red Sox this season, making every single occasion one worthy of celebration.
Advertisement
Luis Severino has been known as the Yankees No. 1 pitching prospect and proved his worth by cruising through the minor league system after he was signed as an global free agent in 2012. Wright says the long-time Red Sox great has helped him iron out his mechanics. Rodriguez pitched five innings in his last start against the Rays, giving up three earned runs but earning a no decision. Not just with Severino, but all young pitchers. In his last start, on June 30 against the Chicago White Sox, Wright out-dueled ace Chris Sale with eight strikeouts over seven innings of work.
Much of that promise was on display Wednesday night, as Severino made his debut against rival Boston in front of a packed house aware that it was witnessing something rare. He was prepared to move on from baseball.
“I was anxious to be out here and excited, pleased with the opportunity and tried to seize it the best I could”, Owens said. And he’ll make about the league minimum this year (and through 2017). I had a baby on the way.
Now he can. But he had to do one thing before arriving at the ballpark Wednesday: shave off a week’s worth of facial hair. Shannon and Steven Wright will be celebrating Ella Grace’s third birthday at the end of October. But the circumstances of his callup – with the Yankee rotation rife with question marks in the wake of Michael Pineda’s elbow injury and, with the exception of Ivan Nova’s limited sampling, the absence of any starter with an ERA of under 3.80 – are not unlike Ford’s in 1950 and Stottlemyre’s in 1964.
Wright held the Yankees hitless until the fifth inning and gave up four hits overall, including a solo home run by Yankees right fielder Carlos Beltran to open the seventh.
Typically, conversations about the knuckler tend to conjure soft-focus images.
Pitching, after all, is not about who can throw the hardest. Farrell, however, stood that notion on its head Wednesday night when he praised the pitch’s “violent” action.
Alex Wilson got the last out to notch his second save and center fielder Anthony Gose had an RBI triple for the Tigers (52-55).
“Sometimes you get swings and misses, but I’d rather not, to be honest with you”, he said.
“George used to call Larry ‘the chameleon.’ When Larry was with the Orioles, he took the issues one way, and then when he went to San Diego, it was another way”.
“It’s true of any pitch”. “Either the injuries compelled them to go dial up higher or the offers on the table were going to cost me a Warren or a Mitchell, which right now I need anyway – and may very well be significantly better than what I was getting regardless”.
The slugging catcher was injured blocking a pitch in the dirt from reliever Dellin Betances on Tuesday night, when McCann homered and drove in four runs.
It still looks more like being assaulted by a feather duster than pummeled by a sledgehammer. Then, in the World Series against the Cardinals, he faced off three times against Bob Gibson after Ford was sidelined with numbness in his arm in Game 1, and pitched brilliantly in Games 2 and 5 before losing Game 7 with only two days rest.
Advertisement
He made only one other mistake, leaving a fourth-inning fastball over the plate to the ageless David Ortiz, who was 17 when Severino was born.
