The Red Sox handed the ball to rookie pitcher Hunter Dobbins on Sunday night against the New York Yankees. As if the moment wasn’t already big enough, Dobbins added fuel to the fire with his pregame comments.
“This is one that I’ve had circled for a long time,” Dobbins told Gabrielle Starr of the Boston Herald. “I’ve said it before, that if the Yankees were the last team to give me a contract, I’d retire.”
His start started shaky when he left a fastball over the heart of the plate to Yankees star right fielder Aaron Judge, who hammered the ball to right-center field for a home run to open the scoring.
Many rookies would spiral in that moment and let a bad inning snowball. Dobbins didn’t blink.
After the home run, Dobbins retired the next three Yankees to end the inning and settled into a groove from there. In fact, the righty didn’t allow another Yankee to reach base until the fifth inning when DJ LeMahieu hit a solo home run for the Yankees’ third run of the night.
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Dobbins didn’t have his best stuff as he induced just four whiffs on the evening, but he mixed and matched his pitches effectively to prevent hard contact. 10 of the 18 hitters Dobbins faced hit the ball on the ground, with only one reaching base.
The rookie may have been pitching with some added adrenaline as he tried to back up his pregame comments. His fastball velocity was up almost two miles per hour over his season average.
The righty also used his slider effectively in the zone to get outs. LeMahieu’s home run came off a slider that was hung out over the plate, but most of Dobbins’ sliders lived down in the zone where they’re most impactful.
More swings and misses are likely necessary for Dobbins to stick long-term as a viable starting pitcher, but his performance on Sunday night was enough to set the Red Sox up to take the series.
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