Walker Buehler wasn’t taking any chances with the early start.
Instead of getting up and figuring out what roads may have been closed along the Boston Marathon route, he took his family to a nearby hotel to get ready for his Monday morning start.
“I stayed at a hotel last night, just so that I kind of didn’t have to worry too much about it,” he said after Boston’s 4-2 victory over the White Sox in its annual Patriots’ Day game.
“My wife and kids stayed with me and everything was kind of normal for us,” he said. “We’re all kind of used to sleeping in hotels, so we’re all good.”
Wearing a white home jersey with red letters spelled out “Boston” across the front — a jersey inspired after the city rallied in the Red Sox’s first game following the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 — Buehler threw his first pitch at 11:11 a.m. on a chilly morning at Fenway Park.
“I had all my stuff done,” he said of the move from his nearby Newton home. “I took an iPad home and read it last night, where I typically do. I scouted their whole lineup and every guy on the bench.”
Buehler gave up a run in the first inning before going the next six scoreless, holding Chicago to four hits while striking out nine and walking three in his 100-pitch outing.
He said he set his alarm for 6:45 a.m. and got to the park at 7:15. It was the earliest game he’d pitched in since Double-A in 2017, he recalled, when he was in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ farm system.
“Against Jack Flaherty, SpongeBob Squarepants Day, that we faced each other in,” he said, smiling. “I was thinking about that earlier.”
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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