Marsh Didn’t Get a Hit: Red Sox 3 Phillies 1
· Yahoo Sports
After squeezing out a tight 2-1 win over the Red Sox in game one of this series, it was Boston’s turn to win on the margins. Trevor Story led the way with two fantastic plays in the 5-6 hole to prevent hits and he took Painter deep on a middle-middle sinker. Ceddanne Rafaela hit the big home run and the Phillies’ offense didn’t have much in the tank outside of a Justin Crawford home run.
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Andrew Painter entered his eighth major league appearance with something to prove after getting crushed against the powerful Athletics offense. Luckily, the Boston Red Sox came into this game ranked 29th in wRC+, 28th in OPS, and 29th in home runs. There aren’t many opponents that look like an easier matchup on paper than this one for the rookie right hander, who entered this outing with a 6.89 ERA overall.
Painter looked the part of a solid back-of-the-rotation starter with five innings of one-run ball, a Trevor Story home run in the second inning. He seemed to a real rhythm right after that home run. He ended off the inning by striking out Caleb Durbin with Marcelo Mayer on second base. In the third, he generated two ground balls, one of them being a double-play ball from Willson Contreras.
His fifth and final inning of the night was his finest. He got Connor Wong to chase the tight slider for a strikeout, Caleb Durbin looked like a bad fisherman on the two-strike slider he swung at, and got Jarren Duran on an inside fastball.
Painter showed a different pitch mix in this one. In 62 pitches of work, he threw just 15 four-seam fastballs and six sinkers. He relied on sliders and sweepers to keep the Red Sox lineup off balance and generate more swing and miss. This also might help explain why Don Mattingly had a quick hook for him, with the potential that the Red Sox would be able to make a significant adjustment the third time through the order.
In that span, Sonny Gray matched the rookie pitch for pitch but could not record a shutdown third inning right after Boston took the lead. Justin Crawford worked a two ball count and got a 91 mph fastball right down the middle and put a fantastic swing on it to straightaway center field.
Number 2️⃣ for Justin Crawford! pic.twitter.com/OWhMQoFizy
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) May 13, 2026
The Phillies offense struggled to handle Gray’s mix outside of that. The sweeper and curveball kept the Phillies offense off-balance enough to produce some ugly swings. One stat that might symbolize the issues is that Gray got 4 whiffs on nine swings with his sinker. That is probably more about how he was mixing his pitches, and the Phillies offense rather than how nasty the pitch is.
It was a battle of the bullpen’s with Painter going five and Gray going six. The Phillies deployed Tanner Banks but he gave up a single to left handed hitting Wilyer Abreu. When Red Sox manager Chad Tracy elected to hit Ceddanne Rafaela for Masataka Yoshida, Mattingly countered with Orion Kerkering.
One thing you should probably not to do a hitter who takes big hacks and chases 36% of the time is throw a fastball right down the middle.
CLUTCH CEDDANNE. pic.twitter.com/yKhRJnhjDx
— Red Sox (@RedSox) May 14, 2026
That would be all for either offense as the bullpens handled the opposing lineups for the rest of the night. Justin Slaten and Garrett Whitlock worked scoreless seventh and eighth innings. Whitlock specifically made an impressive catch in foul territory to end that frame. It all set up for Aroldis Chapman to close out the ninth.
It wasn’t easy for him, Kyle Schwarber walked on five pitches because Chapman couldn’t find the zone and took second base on a wild pitch. Bryce Harper and Adolis Garcia went down swinging. Mattingly elected to deploy Trea Turner, who wasn’t in the lineup to begin the same, for Brandon Marsh. While Marsh has been hitting lefties better than Turner this year, it did make sense to have a right handed hitter in that spot. Turner stood there for four pitches and walked down to first base.
Alec Bohm was the Phillies’ last chance and eventually had the chance to tie the game with a single. Schwarber and Turner ran a double steal to put runners on second and third.
On a one-two count, Bohm could not lay off on Chapman’s whiffle ball sinker and struck out to end the night.
After scoring 22 runs against the Rockies in three games at home, the Phillies have scored just three runs through the first two games of this series and their pitching just couldn’t save them tonight.
The 20-23 Phillies are supposed to play the final game of this series tomorrow night with Jesús Luzardo going against Ranger Suarez. The battle of who the Phillies let walk and decided to pay on a long term contract extension.