The dog days of summer are here, and nowhere is that more evident than in Major League Baseball. In a historically offensive season, pitchers are feeling the pressure. Red Sox starter Rick Porcello was the latest to boil over, punching out the screens of a couple of dugout TVs on Wednesday night during a poor start against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Porcello’s outburst came during an outing in which he allowed six earned runs in 5 2/3 innings against the Rays in an important series for both teams’ AL wild-card hopes. As he entered the tunnel to the clubhouse, he quickly reached up with both hands and hammered the TVs, which were mounted side by side on the wall above the tunnel.
Rick Porcello needs to chill.pic.twitter.com/JBiZQ8u4ch
— Sporting News (@sportingnews) August 1, 2019
Tantrum season
This week has already been eventful. Trevor Bauer heaved a ball from the mound over the center-field wall Sunday as he was pulled from what ended up his final Indians start. On Tuesday, the Reds and Pirates had a huge brawl after Pirates pitchers threw at the Reds’ Derek Dietrich and the Reds’ Amir Garrett charged the Pittsburgh dugout.
Perhaps it’s just a television and social-media age that makes these blowups much more public, but they seem more and more frequent. Porcello’s outburst wouldn’t have been possible just a couple of years ago, because there weren’t TVs in the dugout. He would have had to hit a Gatorade cooler instead, and who hasn’t seen that before?
Here’s what Rick Porcello and Alex Cora had to say about the pitcher breaking two TV screens in the Red Sox’s loss to the Rays. https://t.co/zvHhnyhvvL pic.twitter.com/WAlig3Y6c4
— NESN (@NESN) August 1, 2019
An apology and hope going forward
For his part, Porcello was apologetic after the game.
“I kind of wish I did that without cameras being on me,” he said , according to ESPN.com. “I apologize to everyone that had to see that. It’s not a behavior that I feel like is representative to me and my personality. The frustration got the best of me.”
Porcello has had a poor season. His ERA is 5.74 and his record 9-8, mostly because his team has provided good run support. But like the Red Sox as a whole, there is still time to rebound from another ugly start and some more ugly pitching behavior.
Rick Porcello apologizes for punching TVs in Red Sox dugout. https://t.co/CRukEiNRjn pic.twitter.com/aM4mXhvIzw
— NESN (@NESN) August 1, 2019
