Hot dog! It’s Nathan
Eovaldi, bats belt Bombers
NEW YORK — Some players go 10 playoff starts without ever winning one. Not Nathan Eovaldi. Eovaldi’s first career playoff start was the kind of performance that ought to cement his name into the Red Sox rotation for the rest of October.
In an overpowering performance against a New York Yankees team he’s dominated all season, Eovaldi was masterful in seven innings of one-run ball as the Red Sox bats came alive against Luis Severino in a 16-1 thumping of the Yanks in Game 3 of the American League Division Series last night.
The Red Sox take a 2-1 series lead and a lot of momentum into Game 4 tonight, when Rick Porcello starts opposite CC Sabathia.
They now have a chance to pop champagne at Yankee Stadium for the second time in less three weeks.
They have Eovaldi to thank, and the easiest way to show it would be to bump him up in the rotation should the Sox advance to meet the Houston Astros in the ALCS.
Eovaldi entered with 16 sparkling innings of onerun ball against this Yankees team since joining the Sox in July. But never in those three starts did he pitch with the kind of force and purpose as he did last night, when he averaged 98.7 mph on his four-seamer, second-highest of the season. He touched 101.2 mph, just the second game in which he’s hit 101 mph this year.
Eovaldi’s first pitch of the game was a 99-mph fastball on the inside edge to Andrew McCutchen, and he never got any slower.
Even when he made mistakes, which was rare, he didn’t suffer. He left a fastball over the middle of the plate to Aaron Judge in the first inning, but at 101 mph Judge couldn’t quite get the angle he needed and the pitch was hit on a line to Mookie Betts at the rightfield warning track.
There were plenty of chances for Eovaldi to unravel, but he never did.
Not when Didi Gregorius dropped a surprise bunt attempt on him in the second inning, and Eovaldi mistakenly looked to second base to get the lead runner, then was late changing his mind and throwing to first. Gregorius was ruled safe, but the call was overturned (one of three calls at first base overturned on the evening thanks to umpire Angel Hernandez, who will call balls and strikes tonight). Eovaldi then escaped the jam.
And there was no sign of panic when Eovaldi slipped on the wet mound and missed a chance at an easy out at first to start the fourth inning. Luke Voit reached on the mistake and later scored on a groundout, but that was the only damage.
By the seventh, Eovaldi was still touching 100 mph.
He completed seven innings on 97 pitches, allowing just five hits and striking out five.
The offense had scored just seven runs in the first two games, but had no trouble against Severino. The Sox manufactured three runs over the first three innings without an extra-base hit.
Severino loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth and was removed. Andrew Benintendi doubled to clear the bases off Lance Lynn, the Sox were up 7-0 and that was the end of the Yankees in this one.
But there was still history to be made.
Brock Holt singled to start the Sox fourth and followed Benintendi’s clutch hit with a two-run triple later in the frame.
In the eighth, Holt added an RBI double, setting the stage for the ninth. The Yanks brought on catcher Austin Romine to pitch the frame with a 14-1 deficit.
After an Ian Kinsler walk kept the inning alive, Holt belted a two-run homer to accomplish the first cycle in postseason history.
It wasn’t as historic but Eovaldi’s postseason start was easily the best by a Red Sox pitcher since 2013.
The Sox have found their No. 2 starter this postseason.