A pitcher can - and often times does - throw over 100 pitches a game. But when it's all said and done, only a handful of those pitches stick out.
For Rick Porcello, six balls thrown in the fourth inning will stay with him longer than all the others.
Trailing 1-0 heading into that inning, Porcello walked his first batter of the game, Jose Bautista. As a pitcher, the last thing you want to do is put the leadoff man on - and it's that much more frustrating when it comes by way of the walk.
This time, Porcello's defense wasn't there to bail him out, either. The next batter, Edwin Encarnacion, grounded to Brock Holt at third base on the first pitch, but the ball skipped up on Holt for an E5, and suddenly there were two men on with no outs.
With Justin Smoak now at the plate, Porcello missed with a changeup and then missed again with a fastball. Smoak took the next fastball thrown his way to left-center field for a two-run double. That had Porcello shaking his head after the game.
"I think the two things that I can take away from tonight that were in my control that I didn't do very well was the leadoff walk to Bautista in the fourth - he's a great hitter but at the same time I want to make him swing the bat and earn his way on the bases as for anybody leading off on the inning - and then falling behind Smoak, 2-0," Porcello told reporters. "That was the biggest thing. I fall behind him 2-0 with first and second and I have to cover the strike zone with something. So he put a good swing on that ball and drove it in the gap. The pitch itself, I have to throw a strike, it was down, he really put a good swing on it."
That made it a 3-0 game, and one batter later it was 4-0 after Ryan Goins took Porcello off the wall in right field.
He'd go on to allow two more runs in the sixth after loading the bases with three singles, and wouldn't return for the seventh inning. Porcello threw 111 pitches on the night.
He had four strong starts leading up to Friday night, heading into the game with a 2.15 ERA in those four games, but five earned runs Friday night will change that.
"All things considered I don't think he threw the ball as bad as his numbers indicated," Torey Lovullo told reporters. "I do know that he was having trouble with his curveball. It's something he could get to in is past outings. The fastball command was what we expected. The changeup was very effective. And we just gave this team extra chances at times and that's why they're in first place."