BOSTON — The Red Sox aren’t dead yet.
On the verge of their first losing streak longer than five games since their last-place season in 2020, the Sox bounced back with a much-needed 3-1 victory over the Cleveland Guardians on Monday night.
It wasn’t their best game ever played, but it was a clean game, their first in a week, and an essential first step on their way towards saving their season ahead of the trade deadline next Tuesday.
The takeaways:
1. The Red Sox didn’t make an error
The Sox snapped a stretch of six straight games with an error. They had lost five of them and allowed poor defense to become the calling card of their fast-sinking season.
With an MLB-high 19 errors in July, the Red Sox have given away outs and made things even more difficult on a pitching staff that is missing three starting pitchers and has just three relievers they can rely on.
But they made all the plays Monday night, and took advantage of some poor defense on the other side.
With Rob Refsnyder on first base and the game tied 1-1 in the sixth, Alex Verdugo lifted a flyball off the Green Monster that ate up Cleveland left fielder Steven Kwan, who misread the ball off the wall and then tumbled onto the ground trying to chase it. Refsnyder scored all the way from first and Verdugo walked into second with a go-ahead double.
Verdugo scored two batters later on a Christian Vazquez single to make it 3-1.
2. Finally, a good start
The Red Sox couldn’t buy a decent outing from a starting pitcher over their last six games entering Monday. Sox starters had allowed 29 earned runs in 22 innings (11.86 ERA) in that span.
Nick Pivetta had been going through it, too, with a 13.50 ERA in his previous starts.
But he looked great on Monday, locating his fastball that touched 97 mph and averaged 94 mph, up a little from his previous starts. He generated seven whiffs on the fastball, four more on his signature curveball, and another on his slider.
More importantly, he was moving the ball around with ease, using high curveballs in fastball counts and keeping a tough Guardians lineup off-balance all night.
Pivetta went 5 2/3 innings, striking out six and walking three while allowing just one run on an infield single in the fifth.
3. Garrett Whitlock gets the save
John Schreiber has been Alex Cora’s go-to reliever to bridge the gap to the late innings, and it worked once again on Monday night as Schreiber used his high-90s heater and funky arm slot to clean up the sixth inning and throw a scoreless seventh.
Then Cora turned it over to Whitlock, who entered the game having allowed just one hit in four scoreless innings since he returned from the injured list on July 15.
He had pitched an inning Sunday night, but Cora felt comfortable going to him on back-to-back nights and Whitlock made it look easy.
He dazzled in the eighth, then surprisingly went back out for the ninth, despite the Sox’ typical closer, Tanner Houck, warming in the bullpen.
Whitlock handled a 1-2-3 ninth for his second save of the year and first save since April 19.
