On Thursday afternoon in the ninth inning of an eventual 4-1 Red Sox win against the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park, closer Craig Kimbrel struck out Hernan Perez, Travis Shaw, and Domingo Santana to end the game. While not the first time Kimbrel had struck out the side in an inning this season for Boston, what made it remarkable was the fact that he did so on nine consecutive pitches. In Major League Baseball history, 79 pitchers have accomplished this feat, commonly referred to as the immaculate inning, a total of 83 times.
Kimbrel joins Pedro Martinez and Clay Buchholz as the only three Red Sox pitchers to strike three batters on nine pitches in a half-inning. Martinez accomplished his feat almost 15 years ago to the date — 18 May 2002 — in the first inning of a game against the Seattle Mariners, while Buchholz did so in the sixth inning of a game against the Baltimore Orioles on 16 August 2012.