Swihart sweet in 13th
Walkoff double rescues Sox as bullpen shines
It had been a month since the Red Sox played a team with a winning record, but it was worth the wait.
Blake Swihart stroked a walkoff RBI double in the 13th inning to push the Red Sox over the Phillies, 2-1, last night.
Less than a day from the non-waiver trade deadline and the Red Sox pursuing relief help and poten- tial upgrades in the infield, the Sox bullpen and infield options dazzled.
After David Price threw eight strong innings of one-run ball, Tyler Thornburg, Ryan Brasier, Heath Hembree, Joe Kelly and Hector Velazquez each threw a scoreless inning of relief.
The top five spots in the Sox order went 0-for-24, but Eduardo Nunez, Brock Holt and Swihart combined for five of the team’s seven hits. The last one came on Swihart’s poke for a ground-rule double to score Nunez and finish the game more than four hours after it began.
It was the first career walkoff hit for Swihart, who was a lategame substitution for Sandy Leon. The Phillies came out swinging against Price and were smoking the ball in the early innings. Potent slugger Rhys Hoskins drilled a double to left but was stranded in the first. In the second, line drives to left by Asdrubal Cabrera and Maikel Franco supplied the Phillies with a 1-0 lead.
Price settled down after that, striking out the final two batters of the inning and settling into a strong rhythm the rest of the night.
Some questionable baserunning from the Phillies helped the Sox in the third. With runners on the corners and one out, Carlos Santana hit a dribbler to Nunez at third base and Hoskins took off for home. Nunez chased him down and the Sox had him in a pickle, and when Hoskins was chased back to third, Odubel Herrera got too close to the same bag and both were tagged for a double play.
Price hardly budged from there, giving up just three hits in his final five innings as he completed eight innings of work for just the second time all season.
Aaron Nola was just as good if not better.
Nola, who entered with the eighth-best ground ball rate in the majors this year at 50.6 percent, used the tactic again in this one, inducing 11 ground balls and two fly outs through eight innings. They should’ve been scoreless innings if not for a mistake by Herrera in center field, who charged too quickly on a line drive by Nunez in the fifth inning and watched it sail over his head for an RBI triple.
Other than that gift, the Sox had just three hits off Nola in eight innings.
Their best chance came in the eighth, when Holt smoked a leadoff double off the Green Monster. Conventional baseball wisdom would’ve told manager Alex Cora to sacrifice bunt, which his team has executed just four times all year. Leon was up, and he nearly grounded into a double play one day earlier while trying to bunt. There was no pinch-hitting move by Cora and Leon hit a weak popup that never moved the runner. Mookie Betts then struck out and Andrew Benintendi hit a rocket to Herrera in center as the Sox came up empty.
Cora showed a lot of confidence in Tyler Thornburg, who just one week earlier was struggling to get into games because Cora said he couldn’t find the right situation for him. Thornburg gave up runs in three of his first five outings since returning from a long rehab due to thoracic outlet syndrome, but had scoreless appearances in his last four outings.
Last night’s was solid, as Thornburg allowed just a single while recording a strikeout.
The rest of the bullpen followed before Swihart made his mark with his biggest moment of the 2018 season.