Struggles continue for starters
Pivetta turns in one of his worst outings
Alex Cora has insisted his starting rotation’s struggles over the last week-plus is just a tough stretch against good offenses, a blip on the radar of an otherwise long 162-game season.
But for at least another day, the woes continued.
After a successful start, the Red Sox’ rotation has slipped since last weekend in the Bronx. Four games this week against the Astros, the league’s best offense, certainly didn’t help, but after a hot two months to start the season, they’re regressing to the mean.
On Saturday, Nick Pivetta continued the streak. The Red Sox right-hander, who’s been mostly solid in his first full season in Boston, submitted one of his worst outings. He allowed a careerhigh four home runs — including three in the fifth inning — as the Red Sox got beat up in a 7-2 loss to the Blue Jays at Fenway Park.
While they’re still 5-3 over their last eight games, it hasn’t been because of their starting rotation. The staff has posted an 8.36 ERA over their last eight starts — 35 earned runs and 60 hits across 37 2/3 innings — and no one in the rotation has completed six innings since Nathan Eovaldi pitched seven frames in a June 4 win over the Yankees.
“It’s one week, guys,” Pivetta said. “At the end of the day, we’ve held together really, really strong and put some really good starts in. There’s no room for panic here. There’s no room for making a big deal out of it. It’s baseball. It’s how it goes. It’s how you adjust to it and how you move forward. There’s not a big deal out of it. It is what it is. It’s baseball. Sometimes guys get the better of us, sometimes we get the better of other guys.
“We go on a stretch here where we dominate for the rest of the first half then nobody is going to be talking about this at the end of the day. It’s five bad starts. It is what it is. You keep moving forward.”
The Red Sox were the last team in the majors to not give up at least three homers in a game. And they entered Saturday on a streak of 46 consecutive games of allowing one homer or less. Both of those came to an emphatic end.
Pivetta had just one blemish to show — a two-run blast by Vladimir Guerrero Jr., his 20th of the season, in the first inning — until things got ugly in the fifth.
After allowing just five homers all season entering Saturday, he gave up three blasts to the first four hitters he faced in the inning. Cavan Biggio led off with a solo blast before Pivetta issued a walk to Reese McGuire. Marcus Semien and Bo Bichette proceeded to go back to back, including a monstrous 468-foot shot from Bichette that gave the Jays a commanding 6-0 lead.
“It just comes down to every home run that I gave up, I mislocated the pitch or hung the pitch,” Pivetta said. “It’s gonna happen. Sometimes you get lucky and the hitter misses it. Today they hit every single one.”
While the rotation is certainly slumping, the Red Sox aren’t overreacting to one week after the staff had been consistent for two months. Cora expected adjustments, especially against explosive lineups like the Astros and Blue Jays, and reiterated that this rut isn’t reflective of how good his rotation can be.
“It’s part of the season,” Cora said. “We were unable to hold them today, but overall if you think about it, it’s been a bad stretch but I still have confidence, the same way when I came in this year going into spring
training. I believe in these guys and these guys are going to give us quality innings, keep us in games and we’re going to do our thing offensively.” Other takeaways from Saturday’s loss:
The Red Sox ultimately ■ allowed five homers and it was too much for the offense to overcome. They were stymied by Blue Jays starter Steven Matz, who struck out eight Red Sox and induced 17 swings and misses over 5 2/3 innings of onerun ball.
The Red Sox seemed to have another late rally in them when Rafael Devers hit an RBI triple in the eighth to make it 6-2. But it ended quickly as Hunter Renfroe struck out before Christian Vazquez lined out to Semien, who made a leaping
grab before doubling Devers off third to end the inning.
The Red Sox’ outfield ■ defense stayed hot. After Renfroe and Alex Verdugo each made impressive outfield assists this week, it was Kiké Hernandez’s turn. With men on second and third and one out, the center fielder caught a fly ball from McGuire before firing a bullet to home to cut down Joe Panik. It was the Red Sox’ major league-leading 19th outfield assist of the season.