When Alec Mills had to leave Saturday’s game after just seven pitches with a possible recurrence of the back issues that kept him out of action this year until June, it was another “Welp, here goes this game.”
Except it didn’t, and that was a credit to Mark Leiter Jr. (and Mychal Givens and David Robertson, too). Leiter threw an outstanding 5u2153 innings, allowing just four hits and a run, striking out five. It was one of just four starts in his MLB career where he had thrown that many innings and allowed just one run. He left in the sixth to a warm ovation, well deserved.