Red Sox reliever Liam Hendriks speaks out against "deplorable" online threats he received after loss
Ahead of Friday's afternoon game at Fenway Park, Red Sox reliever Liam Hendriks spoke out against online commenters who sent him and his wife death threats after Wednesday night's loss to the New York Mets.
Hendriks held court with reporters ahead of Friday's Game 1 against the Baltimore Orioles, and lashed out against those who wished him harm after he was tagged with the loss in Boston's 5-1 defeat to the Mets. Hendriks said online threats are nothing new and something everyone in the locker room deals with.
"Unfortunately it's rampant within sports. I've had people from different organizations, I've had people in different sports reach out about their own experiences with it. I've had people that have had their home addresses leaked, people that, it's a lot more deplorable than what we've had," said Hendriks.
He added that most of the threats from Wednesday night were made during the game, so he didn't see them until later in the evening. He also said the threats have gotten "a lot worse" with the rise of sports gambling around the country.
"Unfortunately, that tends to be what it ends up being -- whether it be Venmo requests, whether it be people telling you in their comments that I was like, 'Hey, you blew my parlay. Go [expletive] yourself,'" Hendriks said Friday. "And then it's, 'Go hang yourself. You should kill yourself. I wish you died from cancer.' That one kind of hit a little too close to home for me with everything I've gone through."
Hendriks underwent treatment for non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 2023. He said Friday that many players have become numb to the online heckling and even some of the threats, but the ones he received Wednesday night went too far. He said he's turned over a number of the messages to MLB security over the last several years.
Hendriks initially took aim at the social media warriors Thursday morning with a post to his Instagram story. He hopes that speaking out about the actions leads to more consequences to those posting the threatening messages.
"This is something that is deplorable. There needs to be some sort of punishment so that people can think twice before they start doing this stuff," Hendriks said. "At some point, everyone just sucking it up and dealing with it isn't accomplishing anything. We pass it along to MLB security. We pass it along to whoever we need to. But nothing ends up happening and it happens again the next night.
"The more eyes we get on it, the more voices we get talking about it, hopefully it can push it in the right direction," he added.
Who is Liam Hendriks?
Hendriks has made three All-Star teams over his 14-year MLB career, including in back-to-back seasons with the Chicago White Sox in 2021 and 2022. He saved a career-high 38 games for Chicago in 2021 and closed the door on 37 games in 2022.
But he pitched in only five games in 2023 while received treatment for non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He signed with the Red Sox ahead of the 2024 season, but missed the entire campaign as he recovered from Tommy John surgery.
The 36-year-old righty has appeared in 11 games for Boston this season, and has allowed seven runs over 11.1 innings of work for a 5.56 ERA. Hendriks has struck out 11 while issuing six walks and allowing 10 hits in his time on the mound for the Red Sox.
He had eight straight scoreless appearances out of the Boston bullpen, but Hendriks has allowed five runs over his last 1.1 innings over two appearances.
