NEW YORK — On his eighth day in the majors, lefty Bailey Horn pitched 2 ⅔ scoreless innings at loud Yankee Stadium in Boston’s 5-3 comeback victory Friday. He struck out three, including Aaron Judge.
“What Bailey did last night was incredible,” Red Sox reliever Justin Slaten said before the second game of this series Saturday. “Coming in, in that situation, eight days in the big leagues, and it’s bases loaded, one out at Yankee Stadium, a real hostile environment. For him to be able to go out there and do what he did was phenomenal. We don’t win that game if it’s not for him and not for (Cam) Booser coming in after him.”
Slaten pitched a scoreless ninth inning in a tie game with both Horn and rookie Cam Booser in mind.
“Really I was just trying to go out there and do my job and make sure that those guys got the credit they deserved and not have their performances go to waste,” Slaten said.
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Horn replaced starter Tanner Houck with one out, the bases loaded and the Yankees ahead 2-0 in the fourth inning. He allowed one of the inherited runners to score (Trent Grisham RBI groundout).
He then tossed a scoreless fifth and sixth. Booser kept it at 3-0 with a scoreless seventh and eighth.
Slaten was especially impressed with the work Horn did in the fifth. He allowed a leadoff single to Ben Rice but then got Juan Soto to ground into a forceout and struck out both Aaron Judge and Alex Verdugo swinging.
“He just kind of has this vibe about him that he’s just going to go out there and he’s just going to throw his stuff. It doesn’t matter what happens,” Slaten said. “He’s not trying to do too much. And I think if you go back and look at the at-bats to Soto and Judge, there was no, ‘Oh, let me try to pitch around this guy here. You don’t want to get beat.’ No, he went right at those guys. I think it was Rice that gets the leadoff single and then just like, ‘OK, I’m going to throw my best pitch to Soto and hope for the best result.’ And he gets a (forceout). He throws his best stuff to Judge and gets a strikeout. I think it was just incredible. You see him in that big situation just to be able to go out there and execute pitches.”
