BOSTON — Dominic Smith appeared in 646 career games prior to arriving at Fenway Park on Saturday, so it’s safe to say he probably assumed he’d already seen it all.
He hadn’t.
Smith made his first ever pitching appearance Saturday, taking the hill in a blowout loss to the San Diego Padres. It was quite the performance, as well, with the 29-year-old retiring three of the four batters he faced with a collection of junk.
“It was a little nerve-racking, because you don’t realize how close you really are,” Smith admitted postgame. “… It was fun to get out there and see the game from a different point of view. It feels like you have control of the game, because you have the ball and can kind of do whatever you want up there. It was fun.”
The Red Sox needed just about anyone to take one for the team, as they were already shorthanded heading into Sunday and couldn’t afford to burn another arm. Boston manager Alex Cora knew that, so he looked around the dugout and found his man.
“He pitched in high school,” Cora said. “We had a few guys, but he was right next to (bench coach Ramón Vázquez).”
Is that really all it took?
Cora needed some convincing, but not as much as you’d think when it comes to deciding who was going to get the last three outs of a Major League Baseball game. He detailed the (incredibly easy) conversation that led to Smith’s first ever outing following the game.
Cora: ‘Have you pitched?’
Smith: ‘Yeah, is high school.’
Cora: ‘You want to pitch in the big leagues?’
Smith: ‘Why not?’
If it’s that easy, why doesn’t everyone do it?
It’s actually fairly common for position players to pitch, as most teams will call on the athletes multiple times every year because baseball pitchers are in fact human and tend to have bad days.
Brock Holt famously threw the slowest pitch in MLB history as a member of the Texas Rangers, which was just one tick slower than Smith’s slowest offering Saturday. Yolmer Sanchez, Yu Chang, Reese McGuire, Kevin Plawecki, Christian Arroyo and Pablo Reyes have all done it recently in Boston, with Plawecki and Reyes making something of a routine out of it. The Red Sox likely don’t want to experience it again any time soon, though the same probably can’t be said for Smith.
“If we’re up pretty big I might want to do it again,” Smith said. “… I told (Cora), ‘I got you, whatever you need.'”
