Holt takes unique route to recording historic cycle
Unexpected start ends with home run off unlikely pitcher
NEW YORK — So much had to go horribly wrong for the New York Yankees and uncannily right for the Boston Red Sox for Game 3 of the American League Division Series to wind its way to one final, surreal moment late Monday night in a mostly empty Yankee Stadium: Austin Romine, the Yankees’ backup catcher, on the mound facing Brock Holt, the Red Sox’s reserve infielder, in the ninth inning of a massive blowout, with history riding on both sides of the matchup.
Romine had just become the second position player in history to pitch in a postseason game, while Holt was a home run shy of becoming the first batter in history to hit for a postseason cycle.
“I told everyone (in the dugout), ‘Get me up. I need a home run for the cycle,’ ” Holt said of the buildup to his final at-bat. “I was going to try to hit a home run, but I figured I’d ground out to first.”
Sure enough, Romine grooved a 79 mph pitch — identified graciously as a “slider” on MLB Gameday — and Holt pounced on it, hooking it down the right-field line, just inside the pole, for a two-run homer that accounted for the final runs in the Red Sox’s staggering 16-1 victory, which put them ahead two games to one in the best-of-five series.
“I round the bases,” Holt said, “and seeing everyone go nuts in the dugout was a pretty cool moment for me. It’s something I’ll remember for a long, long time.”
It was the largest postseason loss in Yankees history, which includes 54 Octobers and 396 playoff games.
Rice product comes up big
A Stephenville native, Holt played college ball at Rice. A valued utility man who made starts at six different positions in 2018, he has lost large chunks of time over the past couple of years to vertigo and concussions, which at times got so bad he was unsure if he’d ever play again.
Holt hadn’t played in the first two games of the series and wasn’t expecting to start in Game 3, given his career 1-for-15 performance against Yankees starter Luis Severino. So when Red Sox manager Alex Cora texted him the night before that he would be getting the start in place of struggling veteran Ian Kinsler, Holt texted back, “Are you sure?”
But Cora was sure, and Holt was ready for his chance. He singled off Severino to lead off the fourth inning — the pivotal frame that would see the Red Sox send 11 batters to the plate and score seven runs — then smashed a two-run triple off reliever Chad Green later that inning. In the eighth, facing lefthander Stephen Tarpley, Holt hit an RBI double, putting himself a homer shy of history.
When he stepped in to face Romine, Holt said he was specifically trying — for the first time he could recall in his career — to hit a home run.
“I was going to be swinging at anything,” he said.
Romine takes one for team
On the other side of the equation, Romine had even less expectation of pitching in Game 3 than Holt did of starting it. But by the late stages of the blowout loss, with the Yankees wanting to stay away from their top relievers to save them for Tuesday night’s Game 4, Boone sent bench coach Josh Bard to ask Romine if he could pitch.
“I’ll sure as hell try,” replied Romine, who had last pitched at El Toro (Calif.) High School some 11 years earlier.
Within moments, Romine was on the mound for the first time as a professional, thus becoming the first position player since Kansas City’s Cliff Pennington in the 2015 ALDS to pitch in a postseason game. He said he threw all fastballs, despite what the pitch-recognition systems were calling them. The fastest hit 90 mph, the slowest 68.
“Fastball,” catcher Gary Sanchez said when asked what pitches Romine was throwing, “and slower fastball.”