In complete silence
Porcello’s 1-hitter quiets Yanks
Alex Cora had tried to keep his anger contained, but finally let it out at the end of his postgame press conference.
The question was simple: Is the bad blood between the Red Sox and Yankees over after they escaped a tense game and nar- rowly avoided a beanball war last night?
“I don’t know,” Cora said after the Sox ran away with a 4-1 win. “We scored four runs in less than six innings (off Luis Severino). Is that a quality start?”
The answer, of course, is no. Cora was trolling the Yankees starter.
With that, he stormed off from the podium.
Severino started what could have been a reckless and dangerous night by buzzing Mookie Betts with a fastball near the head in the first inning, but didn’t back it up with his performance (52⁄3 innings, four runs allowed).
Rick Porcello did. Porcello submitted the finest outing of his big league career, holding the Yankees to just one hit, a solo homer by Miguel Andujar, over nine innings.
He threw the complete game on a remarkable 86 pitches, the fewest thrown by an MLB starter in a complete game since Corey Kluber did it on 85 pitches in 2014.
And he helped the Red Sox guarantee themselves at least a series split with two games still to go as they extended their season-high lead over the Yankees in the AL East to 71⁄2 games.
“It definitely got emotional, but I think more than anything it probably fired us up,” Porcello said of Severino’s questionable pitch. “It might have gotten us locked in, I’m not really sure. We definitely didn’t take it lightly, didn’t like it and were fortunate enough to play hard and come away with the win tonight.”
The game was over in 2 hours, 15 minutes, but at one point it seemed like it was destined for so much longer.
In the top of the first, Porcello jumped ahead of Brett Gardner and had an 0-2 count when catcher Sandy Leon set up inside. But the pitch leaked too far in and plunked Gardner on the shoulder. It seemed non-descript at the time, and there was hardly any reason to suspect it was intentional.
Gardner gave Porcello a long look before walking to first base.
“I’m not trying to hit Brett Gardner and put him on, the first batter of the game,” Porcello said. “It’s more important to us to win ball games than to play beanball wars. So I don’t know what his problem was besides getting hit with a fastball.”
When Betts came to bat to lead off the home portion of the first inning, Severino’s first pitch was a 96mph fastball that skimmed by Betts’ head as the MVP candidate fell to the ground.
Severino later said it wasn’t intentional, but the Red Sox were livid.
Crew chief Phil Cuzzi appeared to motion to home plate umpire Adam Hamari that warnings needed to be issued. As soon as Hamari signaled the warnings to both dugouts, Cora exploded.
The first-year manager sprinted out of the dugout and, despite Hamari warning that he shouldn’t be advancing toward home plate, Cora stormed right up to Hamari and started screaming. Immediately, he was ejected.
“I didn’t appreciate them throwing at my leadoff guy,” Cora said. “I didn’t like the fact they gave a warning. If they felt that way, that pitch had intent, just throw (Severino) out of the game.
“If they felt 0-2, frontdoor sinker (to Gardner) had intent, well, first pitch of the game, right at the head of the best player in baseball, there’s intent. It is what it is. We win the game. We move on.”
Betts later grounded out to third base, but Andrew Benintendi doubled behind him and then Steve Pearce launched a two-run homer over the Green Monster.
The Sox added one more in the first and another insurance run in the fifth when Gleyber Torres misplayed a ground ball off the bat of Mitch Moreland, but it hardly mattered the way Porcello was pitching.
The only batter to reach after Gardner was plunked was Andujar, who got an 82 mph changeup over the plate and launched it out for a third-inning home run.
Porcello retired the final 21 batters.