Bill Keveney

USA TODAY

The best pitch at Monday's Red Sox game in Boston was the first one, thrown by Jeff Bauman and actor Jake Gyllenhaal, who will portray the Boston Marathon bombing survivor in the upcoming film, Stronger.

Bauman and Gyllenhaal took to the Fenway Park mound Monday before the Patriots' Day morning ballgame, an annual tradition on the day of the marathon, whose course is just a few blocks from the major leagues' oldest ballpark.

Bauman, who was watching his girlfriend, Erin Hurley, run the 2013 marathon, lost the lower portions of his legs after the infamous bombings. He is now married to Hurley and, in a touching moment, Gyllenhaal carried the couple's 20-month-old daughter, Nora, out to the mound before the ceremonial pre-game toss.

Bauman, who went through multiple surgeries and learned to walk again with prosthetics, detailed his experience in a book, Stronger.

The film, directed by David Gordon Green, does not focus on the bombing, but instead details the recovery of the heroic Bauman, who helped identify the bombing suspects from his hospital bed.

Stronger, which has been filming in Boston, is about Bauman’s "unlikely path toward a love story, and healing and recovery and acceptance of being deemed a hero when he didn’t believe in himself,” says producer Todd Lieberman.

At Fenway, Bauman and Gyllenhaal threw to two Red Sox stars, Hanley Ramirez and David Ortiz, respectively and fittingly, since Ortiz gave a memorable speech to fans shortly after the 2013 bombing that focused on the battered city's resilience and strength. Boston sports teams became an integral part of the city's post-bombing bonding, with the film recently shooting a scene at a Boston Bruins' hockey game that re-created Bauman's first public appearance after his hospitalization.

Monday's combo first pitch, needless to say, was a perfect strike for so many reasons.

Contributing: Andrea Mandell