{"id":74961,"date":"2024-05-30T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T14:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=74961"},"modified":"2024-05-29T23:58:40","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T03:58:40","slug":"richard-fitts-career-day-worcester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/30\/richard-fitts-career-day-worcester\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Prospect Has Career Day At Triple-A Worcester"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=fitts-000ric\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Richard Fitts<\/a> ended the 2023 season as a member of the New York Yankees organization. Six months later, he was with the rival Boston Red Sox after being a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/12\/05\/red-sox-trade-verdugo-yankees\/\" target=\"_self\">key piece<\/a> in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=verdual01,verdug001ale&amp;search=Alex+Verdugo&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-05-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alex Verdugo<\/a> trade. Fitts, a 6&#8242; 3&#8243; right-handed starting pitcher, has impressed during his time in Boston\u2019s organization. But nothing compared to his dazzling performance on Wednesday evening. It was a career day at Triple-A Worcester for Richard Fitts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Richard Fitts Has Career Day At Triple-A Worcester<\/b><\/h2>\n<h3>A Rocky Road<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fitts entered Wednesday\u2019s game against the Charlotte Knights, the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, sporting a 4.35 ERA over nine appearances. He had recently rebounded off a tough outing on May 17, where Scranton tagged him with six runs in just three innings. But just two weeks later, that bump in the road was nowhere near the pitcher&#8217;s mound. On Wednesday, Richard Fitts was nothing short of stellar.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>A Stellar Outing<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fitts started the contest off strongly, retiring the first three batters on 14 pitches. One of those was White Sox rehabber <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/roberlu01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-05-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luis Robert Jr.<\/a>, who Fitts popped up to end the inning. Eight pitches later and Fitts was through the second without any issue. That continued through the third inning. After three, Fitts had two strikeouts and sat down the first nine Knights batters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bottom of the fourth featured another duel against Robert Jr. Fitts punched him out on three pitches to end the inning and remain perfect. His roll kept going through both the fifth and sixth innings with ease. And with just nine batters and nine outs ahead of him, Fitts was just 66 pitches in. It\u2019s rare to see a minor league pitcher throw into the seventh, but that\u2019s exactly what Fitts did on Wednesday night. He got through the seventh frame untouched. A third and final battle with Robert Jr. came to an end with his second strikeout of the night.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Worcester led 5-0 at the end of seven and, with six outs between him and a perfect game, Richard Fitts toed the mound to start the eighth. After throwing a strike, he tossed an 88 mph slider down the middle. Charlotte right fielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/colasos01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-05-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oscar Col\u00e1s<\/a> deposited the ball into center field for a single. It was the Knights\u2019 first baserunner of the evening. After sitting down the first 21 batters, Fitts was removed from the contest.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Richard Fitts was in the zone tonight! ?<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RedSox?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@RedSox<\/a> No. 10 prospect struck out seven as he set down his first 21 batters in order for the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WooSox?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@WooSox<\/a>: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/DwmlUo2hfG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/DwmlUo2hfG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MiLB\/status\/1795989107937579074?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 30, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite not getting over the line, Fitts\u2019 dominant seven perfect innings were arguably the best start of MiLB in 2024. He pitched into the eighth, completing seven full innings. Fitts allowed just one hit and struck out seven Charlotte batters. After entering the day with a 4.35 ERA, Fitts ended the night at 3.72.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What\u2019s Next For Richard Fitts?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Following his near-perfect performance on Wednesday, Fitts is now 4-1 in 2024 over ten games and nine starts. He\u2019s punched out 41 batters in just over 48 innings. After ending April with a 3.91 ERA, he improved in May with a 3.52 in the month. In his first two months with the Red Sox organization, Fitts has strongly placed himself as Boston\u2019s 10th-best prospect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/prospects\/redsox\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to MLB.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fitts had failed to eclipse the Double-A level with New York. He was immediately thrust into Triple-A Worcester once traded. It can sometimes be difficult for a player to acclimate after being moved, let alone following a promotion. And Fitts has followed up his 3.48 ERA in 2023 nicely this year. It\u2019s still early and there is plenty of baseball for Fitts to still play. But with an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/prospects\/redsox\/richard-fitts-690916\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">estimated ETA of 2024<\/a>, Richard Fitts could be playing at Fenway in the near future. For now, though, Fitts can only focus on his last performance. And it\u2019s a good one to have fresh on his mind after a career day at Triple-A.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Rick Cinclair\/Telegram &amp; Gazette \/ USA TODAY NETWORK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Fitts ended the 2023 season as a member of the New York Yankees organization. Six months later, he was with the rival Boston Red Sox after being a key piece in the Alex Verdugo trade. Fitts, a 6&#8242; 3&#8243; right-handed starting pitcher, has impressed during his time in Boston\u2019s organization. But nothing compared to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5152,"featured_media":74969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,926,5],"tags":[900,6391,5968,28526],"class_list":["post-74961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-redsox","category-milb","category-yankees","tag-alex-verdugo","tag-luis-robert-jr","tag-oscar-colas","tag-richard-fitts"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}