When the bats get going, the pitching isn’t there.
When the pitching comes through, the bats fall silent.
It often felt like that was the case during 2022’s last-place campaign, and so far the worrying trend seems to be carrying over to the new year.
Tuesday night it was the offense’s turn to fall flat, as the Red Sox fell to the Pirates 4-1 in a punchless affair at Fenway Park. The offense only managed four hits the whole night and rarely posed a serious threat.
The result? A series loss to a Pirates club that lost 100 games a year ago.
In one respect Tuesday night was a step forward, because Nick Pivetta pitched well enough for the Red Sox to win. Following a string of ugly outings by the club’s starting pitchers to open the season Pivetta allowed just three runs over five innings, only one of which was earned. He gave up three hits and three walks and struck out six in arguably the best outing by a Sox starter so far this year.
“Overall I thought his stuff was good,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “He gave us enough to give us a chance to win.”
The damage came off a pair of home runs. One was courtesy of Ji Hwan Bae, who left the yard for his first career homer immediately after Canaan Smith-Njigba reached on a passed ball following what should have been an inning-ending strikeout.
“He made a really good pitch and it was just nasty enough to get right underneath my glove. I felt like I was in a good position to lift it up into the zone and for whatever reason it just clipped off the end of my glove and I didn’t get down to it,” said catcher Reese McGuire. “Complete ownership of that, and it always [stinks], the next batter leaves the yard and you feel like that inning should have been over.”
The other was a solo shot off the bat of Bryan Reynolds, the red-hot Pirates slugger who has now taken the Red Sox deep three times in two games.
Loud as the contact was, if the Red Sox starters had allowed only three runs in each of their starts the club would probably be undefeated. The trouble is he didn’t benefit from nearly the run support as his rotation-mates.
Boston’s lone run came in the bottom of the first, when Alex Verdugo led off with a single and eventually came around to score on an RBI groundout by Masataka Yoshida.
That groundout wound up being the first of 13 straight Red Sox batters retired by Pirates starter Roansy Contreras, and Boston wouldn’t get a real good chance again until the top of the sixth, when Justin Turner drew a two-out walk and Yoshida reached on an error on a play that should have ended the inning.
That set up runners at the corners for the red hot Adam Duvall, but the Sox slugger struck out after facing six straight sliders from Pirates reliever Dauri Moreta. Reese McGuire also had a pair of doubles in the game but the Red Sox couldn’t take advantage, collectively going 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position.
That isn’t going to cut it no matter how well your own guys pitch, but after getting out to such a hot start offensively some regression was likely inevitable. Cora said he isn’t going to worry about the lineup after one tough game.
“We didn’t get too many hits, we didn’t score seven or eight, right? But I thought we were OK,” Cora said, noting that they had several hard hit balls that went straight to Pittsburgh players. “Just make adjustments, keep putting good at bats and we’ll be ok.”
Now the best the Red Sox can hope for is a win in Wednesday’s finale to avoid the sweep and finish the opening homestand 3-3. Corey Kluber (0-1) will get the ball for the Red Sox against Pirates starter Mitch Keller (0-0). First pitch is scheduled for 1:35 p.m.
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April 05, 2023 at 09:18AM
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Bats fall silent, Sox lose to Pittsburgh 4-1 - Boston Herald
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