Red Sox

Houck took a major step towards proving himself as a bonafide major league starter on Wednesday.

COMMENTARY

What are the 10 greatest pitching performances in Red Sox history?

To be clear, Tanner Houck’s Wednesday night gem is not in that group. Franchise history contains 18 recognized no-hitters, two Roger Clemens 20-strikeout games, and seven years of Pedro Martínez at or near the peak of his powers. And that’s the barest skim of the possibilities.

Wednesday, however, is why I mulled the question. What Houck did against the Guardians was a lightning bolt deserving of celebration. For one thing, it came during a 3-7, injury-heavy homestand that drained any momentum from the pleasant surprise road trip that came before.

One of the best collective starters’ ERAs in franchise history, and still they’re multiple bullpen games deep three weeks in. What a construction.

So, again, Houck. While his offense mustered just five hits, none of which came with a runner in scoring position, Houck wasn’t so much as threatened, throwing 21 first-pitch strikes and getting 19 swings and misses. After giving up 12 hits to the Angels a week ago Friday, his “no really, I’m a starter” declaration is back on track.

“I think this is one of those nights where you probably get one — maybe two — of these a season if you’re lucky,” Houck told reporters. “It’s where you just go out there and you feel like you can do no wrong. You can throw no wrong pitch in any count.”

That it took just an hour and 49 minutes to play, becoming the shortest game at Fenway Park since 1975, is a hook to be partially thanked on that anemic Red Sox offense. It’s still a hook, though, and it reminds that dream nights don’t always remain in the brain.

Like, say, Brian Johnson. The pitcher with the last Red Sox Fenway shutout before Houck was a first-round pick who didn’t really pan out, totaling 171 MLB innings across four seasons in the late 2010s. Nine of ’em, though, came as a five-hitter against Seattle on May 27, 2017 — the lefty’s first career home start.

Let’s pick through four more somewhat forgotten, unforgettable nights.

Aaron Cook — June 29, 2012

Since 1988, there’ve been six nine-inning complete games by a Red Sox in fewer than Houck’s 94 pitches. Two were 86-pitch one-hitters by Cy Young arms — Clemens, in 1988, and Rick Porcello, against the Yankees in 2018. Porcello won at Camden Yards on 89 in 2016. Mike Boddicker and John Dopson had 92-pitch nights in the late 80s.

Then there’s Cook. Eighty-one pitches, in 2:18, on a Friday night at Seattle. The rare West Coast game that made your local paper.

“What an unbelievable game,” Cody Ross, himself the saving grace so many times in a lost year, told reporters.

In so many ways.

Cook, 33, made the team off a non-roster invite. He’d been battling shoulder problems “for probably five or six years,” in his words, and sung the praises of Boston’s medical staff. His June gem was his third start of what was his final MLB season, and for the rest of the year, he’d give up well more than a hit per inning.

Another number that night gave a hint to why: Zero. That’s the number of pitches Mariners hitters swung and missed at. Cook’s two strikeouts were both looking, and came amid the extreme sinkerballer getting 15 ground-ball outs.

For the season, no pitcher got a lower percentage of swinging strikes.

“It’s difficult [for him]. A lot of it has to be fortunate,” manager Bobby Valentine told reporters. “Balls hit at people.”

Mariners manager Eric Wedge put it another way.

“We were horrible,” he told reporters. “We just stunk up the joint. Nothing more to say.”

Chris Sale — June 24, 2018

From a man who missed no bats to a man who missed more than anyone in Red Sox colors during the Statcast era.

Since 2015, when reliable public data began, Sale has seven of the top nine highest single-game swing-and-miss totals for the Red Sox. He twice posted 26, both in the 2018 season. The first was a 15-strikeout, zero-walk, 12-inning loss at Toronto on May 11; Sale went nine, but gave up a game-tying homer in the seventh.

The other was June 24, and he could have had more. Sale struck out 13, including 10 of the first 16 Mariners he faced at Fenway, as part of a run of five straight starts in which he reached double digits.

With the Sox up five runs, Alex Cora pulled Sale after seven innings and 93 pitches, the lefty last a 100 mile-per-hour heater. He departed with more swings and misses (26) than he had balls (22, with 71 of his 93 pitches for strikes).

“He looks fresh, he’s throwing the ball well,” Cora told reporters. “I can’t wait to see him the rest of the season.”

Five weeks later, Sale was on the injured list with shoulder inflammation.

Devern Hansack — Oct. 1, 2006

This is, admittedly, weird even by these weird standards.

It was the season finale of the only year from 2003-09 the Red Sox missed the playoffs, a miserable Sunday at Fenway rain delayed three and a half hours before first pitch, and ultimately ended by more rain after just five innings.

It was Trot Nixon’s final game. It was the day Theo Epstein announced Jonathan Papelbon was, after nearly winning Rookie of the Year as a closer, getting converted back to a starter. (Note: He changed his mind.) It was the day an ultimately bogus drug report had Clemens threatening a lawsuit.

And it was the day Devern Hansack didn’t allow any hits in a 9-0 win.

Making his second major-league appearance after a September callup from Double A, the 28-year-old Hansack — a Nicaraguan released from the Houston system in 2004 who’d taken work as a lobsterman to make ends meet before Boston signed him for $3,000 — faced 15 Orioles, walked one, and erased him on a double play.

“For the fans there, it was a no-hitter,” he said that night. “I was very excited, surprised, because I was out of baseball so long.”

Hansack would make just seven more MLB appearances, pitching in three games for the 2007 champions. His final inning in the organization came for Pawtucket in 2009.

Danny Darwin — Aug. 18, 1993

There are only 119 players who’ve pitched in 700 major-league games, and 138 who’ve thrown at least 3,000 innings. Darwin’s in both groups, from a career that started in Texas alongside Bobby Bonds in 1978 and ended arguing with Barry Bonds in 1998.

Never did Darwin throw more than in 1993, however, when the second of three bad Butch Hobson teams leaned on the 37-year-old for 229 1/3 innings and 34 starts. In a year where the Sox’ problems were offensive, Darwin had a 3.26 ERA and league-best 1.068 WHIP.

And he very nearly threw the first Red Sox no-hitter in three decades, the only blemish in a two-walk shutout a Dan Pasqua triple in the eighth. That came immediately after he’d taken a comebacker off the knuckles.

Even in August, it stung his fingers. When catcher Tony Peña called for a split-fingered fastball, Darwin thought about shaking it off, but didn’t.

Pasqua put it off the center-field wall.

“I walked around a bit on the mound to get the numbness out,” Darwin told reporters. “I probably should have walked around more than I did.”

It ended up the last of Darwin’s three career one-hitters, but he was never closer to a no-no. The Red Sox would need to wait nine more years for a no-hitter at Fenway Park, until Derek Lowe’s against Tampa Bay in 2002.