BOSTON —The Red Sox took advantage of an easy schedule to begin the month of June, surging back into the wild-card race by beating a slew of struggling teams and non-contenders. But since turning their season around last month, they haven’t had many tests quite like the one the visiting Cardinals posed this weekend.
“We feel like we belong in the conversation and we put ourselves in this spot now,” manager Alex Cora said prior to Friday’s series opener.
The Red Sox then proved again they belong with another big series victory at Fenway Park.
Behind another big performance from Nick Pivetta, the Red Sox bounced back from one of their most lopsided losses of the season. The right-hander fired seven strong innings and the offense did enough as the Red Sox finished off the weekend with a 6-4 victory over the Cardinals and took two out of three from the NL Central leaders.
Two nights after the Red Sox made things more complicated than they needed to be when they nearly blew a five-run lead in the ninth, they did it again on Sunday. They led 6-1 again heading into the ninth before Tyler Danish gave up a three-run homer, which forced Cora to use Tanner Houck again. But with the tying run at the plate, he struck out Brendan Donovan to end the game.
Trevor Story and Christian Vázquez – who both recently became new dads – both hit homers, the latter with a three-run shot in the eighth that provided insurance, as the Red Sox won their fifth consecutive series. With the victory, they got back to five games over .500 as they welcome the cellar-dwelling Detroit Tigers for three this week.
