{"id":740735,"date":"2026-07-02T00:30:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T00:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/740735\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T00:30:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T00:30:26","slug":"red-sox-catcher-wont-blame-heatwave-for-loss-despite-extreme-physical-toll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/740735\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox catcher won’t blame heatwave for loss despite extreme physical toll"},"content":{"rendered":"

Connor Wong caught all nine innings and went 2 for 4 in Wednesday afternoon\u2019s series finale with the Washington Nationals, a 10-2 Boston Red Sox loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When it was over, the Red Sox catcher weighed himself. He\u2019d lost six pounds over the course of the three-hour and five-minute game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a hot one,\u201d Wong said.<\/p>\n

Interim manager Chad Tracy pregame noted how team trainers prepare the players for such brutal conditions, including urging them to hydrate as much as possible before coming to the ballpark.<\/p>\n

\u201c(They) prepare them for that,\u201d Tracy said. \u201cI think (players) felt it. Yeah, it was warm yesterday, and humid, so they could feel it coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s only so much anyone can do for a group of athletes playing outdoors when it\u2019s 95 degrees at the 1:36 p.m. ET first pitch. Wong went through two jerseys, and drank \u201ccountless waters, some Pedialyte\u201d to keep cool and hydrated to the best of his ability.<\/p>\n

\u201cTough, tough day today,\u201d Tracy said postgame. \u201cI mean, it was hot. Very hot, very humid. They pushed (starter Payton Tolle) to 40-plus (pitches) in the first two innings. In that heat, I think just the quality of at-bats, the long at-bats, it wore him down a little bit. And then it showed up again there in the fourth where you see him kind of start to fatigue.\u201d<\/p>\n

But neither starter nor catcher were willing to blame the heat wave for their second consecutive loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try not to see that as an excuse,\u201d Tolle said. \u201cI\u2019ve pitched in hot days 1,000 times before, so I don\u2019t really see that as an excuse. I think it just made too many pitches, and made innings longer than they needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s hot, but they\u2019re playing in it, too,\u201d Wong said. \u201cYou\u2019ve just got to try and find ways to cool down a little bit when you get the chance in between innings. Both teams are playing in it, so I don\u2019t think we\u2019re gonna use that as an excuse. It was hot, but they played in it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Connor Wong caught all nine innings and went 2 for 4 in Wednesday afternoon\u2019s series finale with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2398],"tags":[5,48,28683,15690,790,1350,4,415,3973,414,71,4222],"class_list":["post-740735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington-nationals","tag-baseball","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-boston-weather","tag-chad-tracy","tag-connor-wong","tag-fenway-park","tag-mlb","tag-nationals","tag-payton-tolle","tag-washington","tag-washington-nationals","tag-washingtonnationals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116847563515054037","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}