Boston Red Sox prospect Kyle Hart made his case to stay in the rotation
Kyle Hart made his Major League debut for the Red Sox on August 13 against the Tampa Bay Rays. While he had some good moments in that game, it ultimately went pretty poorly. The left-hander went just two-plus innings, allowing seven runs (five earned) on seven hits (two home runs) and three walks while striking out four.
This bad debut led to a lot of people already writing the 27-year-old off. Any sane person will tell you though, one bad outing does not make a player. I mean, Chris Sale gave up seven earned runs in three innings in his MLB debut. Imagine if people decided that was enough to write the book on his career.
Hart stuck around though. Boston is in desperate need of pitching so they decided to give him another start. And on Wednesday he made his second career start – this time against the Philadelphia Phillies (with a much more opposing lineup than the Rays).
Hart was not perfect. His first inning was some pretty scary stuff. A double and two straight walks meant the bases were loaded with no outs.
The lefty got an out but then gave up an RBI-single. 1-0 Phillies. Then Didi Gregorius hit a fly ball that Jackie Bradley Jr. made an incredible play to throw Rhys Hoskins out at home and stop the inning at just one run.
But wait, Christian Vazquez made an uncharacteristically lazy play and did not tag him in time. 2-0 Philadelphia and the inning is still in progress. This is where Hart could have shut down. He could have hung his head and gave up.
Instead, he struck out Alec Bohm to end the inning.
The second inning saw Hart strike out two more, then get Andrew McCutchen to fly out. A clean inning. Then the third inning saw two more walks from the lefty. But he also struck out Bryce Harper and got two straight outs with a runner in scoring position to leave them stranded.
Finally, the fourth inning started with an error. Again, Hart could have let it beat him. Instead, he got the next two outs (including another K) before he was pulled from the game after 3 2/3 innings.
It was not perfect. Hart threw a lot of pitches (73) in just 3 2/3 innings. He also walked four and technically two runs in that time are not exactly good. It was a great start though.
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Hart managed to work around a terrible first inning. He did not let multiple defensive mistakes hurt him either. And once again, he had those strikeouts rolling. Most importantly, the Red Sox actually won the game. Hart did enough to keep them in the contest and they actually won.
In 5 2/3 innings so far, Hart has an 11.12 ERA and a 2.82 WHIP. Those are bad numbers. But he also has nine strikeouts and made some major improvements in game two.
The slider has looked really good and the changeup was working for him. Most importantly on Wednesday, he was making those big outs. He would get into trouble but got himself out of it. That’s a dangerous way to live as a pitcher. But it is also just his second career start. Just like he did from start-one to start-two, improvements and adjustments will be made.
I’m not sitting here telling you that Hart is now the ace of the Boston Red Sox staff. But he definitely made the doubters reconsider a little bit. He’s still getting his feet wet in the MLB, and Wednesday was a major step in the right direction. With the team needing starters that can eat a handful of innings, Hart can be that solution. Let’s see what he can do next time out.