Going into their series finale against the Mets on Wednesday, the Red Sox knew runs would be come to hard by with ace right-hander Jacob deGrom on the hill for New York.
Taking that into consideration, the Sox were also aware that they would not to put forth their best pitching effort to have a chance on Wednesday, and that’s just what they did en route to a 1-0 shutout victory over the Mets at Citi Field to secure the two-game series sweep.
The one run the Boston bats managed to score off deGrom came in the top half of the second inning, when Xander Bogaerts led things off with a hard-hit double and came into score moments later on a one-out RBI double off the bat of Christian Vazquez.
Vazquez’s seventh RBI of the season would prove to be all the scoring the Red Sox would need in this one as Nick Pivetta, Garrett Whitlock, Adam Ottavino, and Matt Barnes combined to toss a two-hit shutout.
Pivetta, making his fifth start of the season, held the Mets to just one hit over five strong innings of work to go along with three walks, one hit batsman, and seven strikeouts on the night. He also worked a 10-pitch at-bat against deGrom in the third.
Whitlock, making his sixth appearance of the season, scattered one hit and one walk while fanning four hitters in the sixth and seventh innings, which led to Ottavino working a 1-2-3 bottom half of the eighth.
Barnes, meanwhile, came on for his second save opportunity in as many days in yet another one-run game and shut the door on the Mets by sitting down Michael Conforto, J.D. Davis, and Dominic Smith on just 12 pitches to preserve the 1-0 victory for his side.
Gonzalez makes leaping play at second
While Ottavino may have faced the minimum three batters in his lone inning of work, he certainly got some defensive help from his second baseman in Marwin Gonzalez.
With one out in the bottom of the eighth, Francisco Lindor laced a 96 mph line drive towards left field that would have put the tying run on base had it gone for a hit.
Instead, Gonzalez, who was playing in the shift and on the outer edge of the infield dirt, left his feet and came up with a dazzling, off-balanced catch to rob Lindor of what could have been an important hit for the Mets.
Next up: On to Texas
After taking both games of this quick interleague-set from the Mets to improve to 16-9 on the season, the Red Sox will head to Globe Life Field inTexas to open up a four-game series against the Rangers that starts on Thursday night.
Left-hander Martin Perez is slated to get the ball for Boston, and he will be opposed by a former teammate in the form of right-hander Kyle Gibson for Texas.
First pitch Thursday is scheduled for 8:05 p.m. eastern time on NESN. Red Sox will be going for their fourth straight win.
(Picture of Nick Pivetta: Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
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