In a season where every win basically counts as winning an entire series, how the Boston Red Sox manage to pull out games doesn’t matter.
As long as they keep finding a way to come away with victories like they did Thursday night, the combination of fun and stress might end up making the Red Sox a decent watch over the next two months.
Thursday’s 4-2 win over the New York Mets at Citi Field was different than Wednesday, when Boston tried to hand the Mets the [...]
In a season where every win basically counts as winning an entire series, how the Boston Red Sox manage to pull out games doesn’t matter.
As long as they keep finding a way to come away with victories like they did Thursday night, the combination of fun and stress might end up making the Red Sox a decent watch over the next two months.
Thursday’s 4-2 win over the New York Mets at Citi Field was different than Wednesday, when Boston tried to hand the Mets the win, and an eternity away from the blowout that was the season opener. It was a win, something Boston couldn’t say it had between Game 1 of the season and Wednesday night, and now it has the team one win away from a – gasp – win streak.
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"It’s a good win," manager Ron Roenicke said. "Certainly the way you kind of script it out."
One-run games are rarely stress free, but thanks to the combination of Christian Vazquez, Martin Perez and a terrible Mets bullpen, Thursday night didn’t totally require a pacemaker.
The offense, as it was Wednesday, was Christian Vazquez. The Sox catcher’s bat is so hot right now it would fail a COVID test.
Vazquez got the Sox on the board first with a homer in the third, then in his next at-bat decided one dinger wasn’t enough. Coming up after the Mets scored two in the bottom of the third, Vazquez roped another bomb, this one a two-run shot to center that scored Xander Bogaerts that put the Sox up 3-2 in the fourth.
The runs were enough for Perez, a left-hander who should make training videos on how pitch at a pace that doesn’t bore fans to death, and Co.
Perez made two mistakes Thursday night and one wasn’t his fault. The first was a pitch Jeff McNeill lined into left that scored two and put the Mets up 2-1 in the third.
The other was a 2-1 sinker to J.D. Davis that caught the bottom of the zone – per the TV broadcast’s K-Zone – but was called a ball. It shook Perez a bit as he walked Davis, but he came back to get Michael Conforto before being pulled for Heath Hembree.
"Great job from Martin to get us that far. He really commanded his pitches well from the first inning on," Roenicke said. "That’s huge for us to have him do that."
Had it not been for his "mistake," there’s a good chance Perez finishes the six and achieved a ‘quality start’ that the Red Sox are going to need more of as the season rolls on. Still, getting 5 2/3 innings, five strikeouts and two hits was a pretty big deal. There’s no need to bring up the four walks on a night like this either.
"When you throw your stuff and you have a good feeling when you go out there and pitch, use the pitch until they make adjustments," Perez said. "You don’t have to change."
The bullpen took care of the rest of the night. The performance wasn’t a batter-up, batter-down type of performance because that would be far too easy. There were some hairy moments, but the triumvirate of Heath Hembree, Matt Barnes and Brandon Workman – pitching with a two-run lead after Edwin Diaz couldn’t find the plate and drilled Jose Peraza with the bases loaded for the game’s final run – got things done.
Hembree transformed himself into East Coast Josh Hader, minus the hair, triple-digit velocity and questionable Twitter past. He picked up for Perez and got Yoenis Cespedes to end the sixth and then pitched around a pinch-hit leadoff single to Robinson Cano to close out the seventh clean.
Matt Barnes followed and if you were ready to fall asleep Thursday night, his performance ensured you’d be awake for at least two more hours.
Instead of giving up a game-tying homer to Mets’ slugger Pete Alonso, he hit him with a two-strike fastball that got away. A one-out single to Davis put runners on the corners but Barnes responded by striking out Michael Conforto with straight gas on a 3-2 pitch after feeding him a steady diet of breaking pitches.
Because there’s no fun in making life easy, barnes walked Yoenis Cespedes, but he quickly got Andres Gimenez to ground out to first, ending the threat.
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