ST. PETERBSURG, Fla. — The two-plus years since Yonny Chirinos last pitched in the major leagues had been challenging.
“Two difficult, long years — very difficult mentally,” Chirinos explained via team interpreter Manny Navarro. “A lot of negative thoughts come into your head when you’re in a situation like that. But, thank God, I never gave up.”
Being activated off the injured list and rejoining the Rays on Tuesday was emotional and rewarding: “I couldn’t really believe it,” Chirinos said. “Even sitting in there with my teammates, it’s something that you still can’t believe that it’s happening all over again.”
Wednesday was even better.
Chirinos returned to the mound and pitched three solid, scoreless innings to get the win as the Rays beat the Red Sox 1-0 to complete a three-game sweep.
Held hitless into the fifth by Boston starter Nick Pivetta, the Rays got their run when Francisco Mejia led off with a double, moved to third on Ji-Man Choi’s flyout and scored on Taylor Walls’ shift-beating infield single.
The Rays improved to 77-58 and a season-best 19 games over .500, winning for the eighth time in their last nine games, 19th in 24 and American League-best 23rd in 33 since the start of August. They remained 4½ games behind the East-leading Yankees, pending the second game of their doubleheader with the Twins, and atop the three-team wild-card field.
With the Rays shortening Jeffrey Springs’ start to three innings, Chirinos took over in the fourth and retired Alex Verdugo on a flyout.
That was the first batter Chirinos faced in a big-league game since Aug. 16, 2020, having undergone Tommy John elbow surgery later that month. Thirteen months later, nearing the end of his rehab, Chirinos in September 2021 fractured his elbow while throwing batting practice and needed another surgery that idled him until this spring.
“It was very tough, but I just had to keep my mind right,” Chirinos said. “It was about six months before I threw another ball ever again, and it’s that mentality where you think, ‘It’s broken. I’m never going to come back from it.’ Those are the (thoughts) that I had. But the strength of God helped me not give up and continue on.”
For the three innings, Chirinos allowed four hits and walked one, struck out four and threw 35 of 53 pitches for strikes. He clocked as high as 96 mph, threw first-pitch strikes to nine of 14 batters and got six swing-and-misses.
Colin Poche, Jason Adam and Pete Fairbanks took things from there.
