Sonny Gray adds another strong start, helps Red Sox win back-to-back games

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Winslow Townson / Getty Images Share full articleBOSTON — On Monday night, after the third straight game where the starting pitcher lasted four innings or less, Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora offered a plea to his team. “We have to pitch for us to get to .500,” he said after boos rained down on Fenway Park as the Red Sox lost eight of their first 10 games. “To go to where we want to go, we have to pitch. That’s the bottom line.” Garrett Crochet and Sonny Gray got the message. One day after a strong performance from Crochet to stop the Red Sox’s season-opening slide, Gray followed up with a sterling performance of his own. He held the Milwaukee Brewers scoreless over 6 ⅓ innings, sending the Red Sox to a 5-0 victory and their first series win of the season. “It felt good,” Gray said of the outing that lowered his ERA to 2.76 through three starts. “I was just thinking ‘Happy flight, happy flight’ — you want to win on get-away day. I watched Beast (Crochet) last night, the game was over, and it was like, ‘OK, it’s my turn to go out there and keep it going.’” Crochet and Gray are the only starters who’ve completed six innings thus far on the season, having done so twice each. The starting rotation as a whole has posted a 4.55 ERA, 24th in the majors. But their top two starters have started to pull the team out of the early depths they’ve dug themselves. On Wednesday, the 36-year-old veteran cruised through the Brewers lineup, one without top hitters Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang. But having faced the Brewers now 21 times in his career, the most Gray has faced any team, he knew he needed a solid plan. He worked around baserunners in the first three innings, then recorded three straight innings facing the minimum three batters each frame. After the sixth at 78 pitches, Cora appeared to shake his hand as he entered the dugout, but Gray shook him and returned to the mound for the seventh. “I just said, ‘I have another zero in me if you need it,’” Gray said. “I didn’t know where our bullpen stood or where we were at.” Cora left the veteran in, and after a leadoff walk to start the inning, Gray induced a hard grounder to first that Willson Contreras fired to second to get the lead runner out. With a man on first, Cora turned to Greg Weissert, who has struggled to start the year, allowing homers in three of his five games. Weissert struck out his first batter, then allowed an infield single to put two on in a 3-0 game. Facing No. 9 hitter Joey Ortiz, Weissert got to 2-2 before a timer violation made it a 3-2 count, threatening a walk to load the bases. But when his next pitch came in and was called a ball, Carlos Narváez immediately challenged, and it was overturned as a strike to end the inning. The Red Sox had suffered from bad challenge calls in the early going, but Narváez’s confidence in that spot was a key point in the game. “That was a great challenge by Narvy to stay locked in there in the moment,” Gray said. “That was a very quality, high-leverage challenge we’re looking for, and Greg came in and did a great job.” Tyler Samaniego — who found out at 9:30 a.m. in Triple A Worcester he was getting promoted to fill Justin Slaten’s spot on the roster — entered in the eighth for his big-league debut, allowing a walk but striking out three. “That was awesome, man,” Samaniego said. “That was everything you ever dream of.” Meanwhile, the Red Sox offense pulled it together for the second straight game, this time against former franchise prospect Shane Drohan. The Red Sox traded Drohan to Milwaukee in February as part of the Caleb Durbin trade, and the left-hander also made his big-league debut on Wednesday. But perhaps because of the familiarity, the Red Sox had a solid game plan against him, taking their walks and knocking him out after 2 ⅔ innings. After drawing five walks on Tuesday, the Red Sox added eight more on Wednesday, creating traffic and moving the line. They struck out just six times. In the third, after Ceddanne Rafaela singled and Isiah Kiner-Falefa bunted for a hit, Andruw Monasterio walked to load the bases. Contreras stayed patient, too, and drew a bases-loaded walk before Wilyer Abreu hit a hard grounder to second that deflected off of David Hamilton and scored a run. Trevor Story added an RBI single to make it 3-0. Gray wouldn’t need more than that, but the Red Sox tacked on two more in the seventh as Story added an RBI single, marking the third straight game in which he drove in two runs. The Red Sox are far from out of the woods, now sitting at 4-8. The offense is starting to move, but is still largely searching for power as they string together singles and take advantage of walks. The team will need more starts like the last two, particularly from Brayan Bello and Ranger Suarez, who’ve had ugly outings in the early going. But Wednesday, as the Red Sox packed for the airport, there was relief in the clubhouse after a brutal start to the homestand ended in back-to-back wins. Crochet’s tone-setter, followed by Gray’s outing, has set the team back in the right direction. “We’re supposed to pitch,” Cora said. “Now it’s (Connelly) Early on Friday. If we continue to pitch, we’re going to be OK.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Jen McCaffrey is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Boston Red Sox. Prior to joining The Athletic, the Syracuse graduate spent four years as a Red Sox reporter for MassLive.com and three years as a sports reporter for the Cape Cod Times. Follow Jen on Twitter @jcmccaffrey