![]() In the ALDS last weekend, Eovaldi again started a Game 3, pitching five innings of two-run ball, again striking out eight.Ĭoming into the ALCS, the man known as Nasty Nate had pitched in eight postseason games, started four, and thrown 32 2/3 innings. Over 5 1/3 innings, he only allowed one run, struck out eight, and didn’t issue a walk. And Eovaldi, who had been scheduled to start Game 4, still tried to convince Cora to let him take the mound again.Īfter a dominant 2021 regular season, Eovaldi was the natural choice for the winner-takes-all Wild Card game against his former team, the New York Yankees. Having been there to witness it in person, it was breathtaking.Įovaldi’s teammates were so moved by his Game 3 performance that Alex Cora had a line of pitchers outside his office the next day, begging him to let them pitch. Thanks to Eovaldi’s magnificent show, the Red Sox and Dodgers played the longest game in postseason history, both by hours and innings. The third, in Game 3, was a stunning six-inning battle in which he threw more pitches than that night’s starter, Porcello. Then, in the World Series, Eovaldi made relief appearances in each of the first three games. ![]() In Game 5, he made a scoreless relief appearance. In the ALCS, exactly three years before his performance on Saturday, he pitched six innings of two-run ball and the Sox won 8-2. He pitched seven innings of one-run ball in Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS while his teammates scored 16 runs. How did Nathan Eovaldi become the Red Sox postseason ace?Īlmost immediately, Eovaldi changed the narrative. He certainly wasn’t a marquee player, and he had no postseason experience whatsoever. Rodriguez’s entire postseason experience was that he had faced two batters in Game 2 of the 2017 ALDS and allowed two earned runs without recording an out.ĭespite the abundance of failure by his new rotation-mates, the hard-throwing Eovaldi was still the odd man out when he was exchanged for Jalen Beeks. ![]() Porcello’s teams had lost every one of the 11 games he’d pitched in between his 2011 postseason debut and the 2017 ALDS. Price had one of the worst postseason reputations in baseball history and Sale had no postseason experience when he was acquired for the 2017 season. They’d won back-to-back division titles in 20 but had lost six of seven ALDS games between the two Octobers. ![]() However, from a postseason perspective, the Red Sox didn’t have much going for them. They had David Price, to whom they had given the most lucrative contract in pitching history to that point, 2016 Cy Young-winner Rick Porcello, Chris Sale, for whom they’d depleted the farm, and the kid with potential, Eduardo Rodriguez. With all the starting pitchers the Red Sox already had when he was acquired via trade from the Tampa Bay Rays at the 2018 deadline, Eovaldi was the afterthought, a fill-in, the cherry on top of an already-robust sundae. Nathan Eovaldi was never supposed to be the Red Sox postseason ace. ![]()
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