Xander Bogaerts left Friday’s game against the New York Yankees in the 10th inning after a hamstring injury that Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora said he had been dealing with his entire at-bat. Bogaerts drove in a crucial game-tying run on before leaving but Boston lost 6-5 on Josh Donaldson’s walk-off RBI single that scored the ghost runner.
“We’ll know more today,” said Cora. “Right hammy. We’ll see how he reacts to the treatment and all that stuff and we’ll see how he feels tonight.”
Bogaerts went 3-for-5 in Boston’s loss, but on his RBI single that scored Jonathan Arauz in the 10th, the shortstop was hobbled out of the box before limping his way to first. Arauz, who was the pinch-ghost-runner for Christian Vazquez, took over at short while Kevin Plawecki took Vazquez’s spot behind the plate.
The 29-year-old says the injury was quite random.
“I don’t know what it was. It wasn’t good, though. I tried to do whatever to not feel it and it kind of went away for a little bit. It was a good sign. It wasn’t a normal thing that happens every day.”
As for tomorrow which will be Nick Pivetta vs. Luis Severino at 4:05 p.m., will Bogaerts be in the lineup?
“I think so if you ask me. Right now, yeah,” he said.
Kutter Crawford entered in the 11th inning of Thursday’s game but allowed a no-out single to Donaldson that scored the automatic runner from second. After Garrett Whitlock’s 2.1 inning relief performance, the team used Matt Strahm, Hansel Robles, Jake Diekman, and Ryan Brasier over Matt Barnes before the question mark became even bigger when they summoned Crawford for his second career major-league outing. So, why wasn’t Barnes utilized?
“He has a tight back, so he wasn’t available to us today,” Cora said.
The runner-on-second rule benefitted Boston on Bogaerts’ RBI single that scored Arauz, the pinch-ghost-runner, but it ultimately ended up costing the Sox as the Yankees scored two runs in extras — a sac fly in the 10th, and the Donaldson walk-off in the 11th — that would not have happened had the ghost runners not been in place.
“I mean, who likes that rule?” said Cora.
Along with Nathan Eovaldi’s strong five-inning start that included three runs allowed over five innings while his 1.51 xFIP shows that he was on the unluckier side of things, was Whitlock’s strong outing. Whitlock pitched two scoreless frames after Eovaldi but with one out in the eighth let up a solo shot to D.J. LeMahieu that made it a 4-4 game before being relieved by Strahm.
“It happens, right?” Cora explained. “Fastball elevated and LeMahieu put a good swing on it but overall he was really good.
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