Red Sox relief pitcher Chase Shugart throws a pitch in the seventh inning of Boston’s 5-1 loss to the Orioles in Baltimore on Thursday. Shugart made his major league debut and pitched 2 2/3 innings. Nick Wass/Associated Press
When rookie Chase Shugart made his major league debut for the Boston Red Sox on Thursday night at Camden Yards in Baltimore, he had his own fan base by his side thanks to some convenient flight routes.
Shugart, a 27-year-old right-hander who was called up from Triple-A on Monday, had about 20 friends and family members in Boston for the Sox’s three-game series against the Rangers. He did not pitch in any of those games before making his first major league trip to Baltimore for the four-game series that begins Thursday. The original plan was for most of his family members to fly home to Houston, where the Sox will play a series starting Monday (100 miles from Shugart’s hometown of Bridge City, Texas). But a layover changed their plans.
A group of seven people, including both of Shugart’s grandmothers, his grandfather, an uncle, his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s mother, made a decision that may not have gone over too well with the airline they were flying on. On the way home, they had a layover in Baltimore, got off the plane in Maryland and made their way to Camden Yards. Others took the second part of the flight, Shugart said, because they needed to return to their jobs.
“They had a layover in Baltimore and they said, ‘You know what? We’ll just get off the plane and come,'” Shugart said. “It worked.”
When Shugart was brought on in the sixth inning of Boston’s 5-1 loss to the Orioles, the support group in the second-floor seats along the first-base line cheered loudly, tears flowing. The group watched as Shugart pitched 2 2/3 innings, allowing one run on three hits and striking out two batters in Boston’s 5-1 loss to the Orioles.
Shugart came in with the Sox trailing 4-1 and kept the game close, the only blemish being an RBI double by Colton Cowser in the seventh inning.
“I felt good,” Shugart said. “I was hitting the strike zone, which I haven’t been able to do in my last few outings in Worcester. It felt good to do that on the big league stage. Going in there, hitting the zone and getting the results I did. I only made one mistake, against Cowser, and he made me pay for it.”
“The first couple of days at Fenway were like a dream,” he said. “It still doesn’t feel real. Then to be in the game tonight was a dream come true for me. I just can’t help but think about the people who got me here and all the work I put in to get here. It’s a good feeling.”
Shugart, drafted in the 12th round out of the University of Texas in 2018, was not called up because of his talent. He has a 4.98 ERA in 59 2/3 innings with the WooSox so far this season. Shugart was added to the major league roster – seemingly out of nowhere – to provide the primary innings after last weekend, when the bullpen was heavily used. He proved useful in a losing game on Thursday after Nick Pivetta lasted just five innings; the relief corps will be heavily used again on Friday, with Cooper Criswell, coming off the COVID injured list, expected to start.
Shugart was sent back to Worcester on Friday when Criswell was activated from the COVID-19 list. But that didn’t matter much Thursday when Red Sox manager Alex Cora recognized the moment when the eighth Red Sox player (and fifth pitcher) would make his major league debut in 2024.
“He was bombarding the strike zone with good stuff,” Cora said. “I wasn’t scared. I don’t know how many strikes he threw or what his percentages were, but as we discussed afterward, nobody can take that away from him. He’s a big leaguer. Whatever happens in the future, it happens. But this day will be remembered.”
Shugart said he heard from someone who was on the flight from Baltimore to Houston that the public address system at BWI was overloaded because of some missing guests.
“They were all calling their names and he said, ‘They’re not coming. They’re gone.’ So there’s no telling what happened after that,” Shugart said. “It was perfect.”
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