Pivetta spins another gem to complete sweep
OAKLAND, Calif. — Nick Pivetta hasn’t gotten much run support this season, but on Wednesday afternoon he didn’t need it.
After allowing one run over six innings in his first start last Friday’s loss, Pivetta followed things up with five shutout innings in Wednesday’s eventual 1-0 win over the Oakland Athletics. He allowed five hits with a walk and three strikeouts, and the bullpen shut the door from there to help the Red Sox complete the three-game sweep.
Including his last two starts of 2023, Pivetta is now just the sixth pitcher in team history to make four consecutive starts with fiveplus innings, one or fewer walks and one or fewer runs allowed. According to the Red Sox, that list also includes Chris Sale, Pedro Martinez and Cy Young.
Though the Red Sox offense tagged Oakland’s pitching staff for 10 hits, they weren’t able to string together many rallies and didn’t capitalize on the few opportunities they got. The one exception came in the top of the fourth, when Triston Casas, Masataka Yoshida and Ceddanne Rafaela strung together three straight singles to load the bases and Enmanuel Valdez put the Red Sox ahead with a sacrifice fly.
Then, Rafaela ensured the Red Sox maintained that one-run lead with some more exceptional defense in deep center field.
In the bottom of the fourth Rafaela nearly made a catch that would have been even more improbable than his sensational grab Tuesday night. That game-saving catch had an expected batting average of .830, per Statcast, but this time he got slightly crossed up and wound up bobbling and dropping a ball that had an expected average of .850. Essentially, he made an extremely difficult play look like a borderline error.
No matter, a couple of batters later he ended the inning by making perhaps his best play of the week, a sensational leaping grab against the wall. The expected average on that one? .880. So in almost any other circumstance it would have been a game-tying double at minimum, and in nine other MLB ballparks a go-ahead two-run home run.
Jarren Duran stayed red hot at the plate, going 4 for 4 to improve to 9 for 12 in the series and bump his average to .393 on the season. Pivetta’s ERA now stands at 0.82 through two starts, and Joely Rodriguez, Justin Slaten, Chris Martin and Kenley Jansen combined for four scoreless innings of relief.
Though Jansen finished the job to earn his second save of the season — tying Billy Wagner for sixth in MLB history with 422 in his career — it didn’t come easily.
After walking two batters on Tuesday night, Jansen walked two more in the bottom of the ninth on Wednesday and his velocity was noticeably down again. He also fell victim to some poor defense as Enmanuel Valdez failed to turn what would have been a game-ending double play, but Jansen managed to get Ryan Noda to strike out swinging to finish the job.
With the win the Red Sox are now 5-2 on the season and have won four straight dating back to Sunday afternoon. The club will now have Thursday off before concluding their west coast road trip with a three-game series in Anaheim against the Los Angeles Angels starting Friday.