In the end, Matt Barnes sat in the dirt, his legs outstretched, just waiting for the celebration to erupt around him. His final pitch of the night had been a curveball in the dirt, good enough for a swing-and-miss, but not a pitch Christian Vázquez could corral. When it got away, Barnes had to cover the plate and was knocked to his backside on the play.
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It was a walk-off wild pitch, and the finality of it all — a 1-0 Rays win on a night when the Red Sox flirted with a no-hitter — seemed to land with a thud. What might have been. What could have been. What should have been.
But Alex Cora seemed to see it differently. The Red Sox manager, who in 2018 turned an 18-inning World Series loss into a rallying cry, insisted Thursday’s loss was further proof that his team was a legitimate contender; flawed but ready to hang with the best of the American League.
“We did a lot of good things. We did a lot of bad things,” Cora said. “I’ve got to be honest with you — a lot of people, they didn’t believe in this team before the season. I think the way we played against these guys tonight shows how good we are. We have a lot of work to do. We know that. But we belong in the conversation. We’re really good. It’s going to be a fun summer in Boston.”
The good things started with Nick Pivetta, the supposed-to-be No. 5 starter who, for a while, pitched more like a No. 2 before struggling in his more recent outings. There were no such struggles this time. Pivetta threw 6 2/3 no-hit innings, spinning his curveball exceptionally well on a night when umpires were checking for illegal sticky substances. He struck out eight and walked two, and when Cora pulled him, he’d thrown 100 pitches.
Pivetta did not plead his case on the mound, did not argue to stay in the game or even to finish the inning. He handed the ball to Cora and walked into the dugout having done his job.
“I did not want to come out, but it’s not about me,” Pivetta said. “It’s about the game. It’s about winning baseball games. That’s what’s most important.”
A win would have pushed the Red Sox a game and a half in front of the Rays in the American League East heading into this weekend series at Fenway Park against the Yankees. With the loss, they fell back into second place, a half-game back. They have, indeed, remained very much in contention nearly halfway through the season. Against the Rays this week, they won one game in extra innings, lost another when Garrett Richards fell flat, and they let this toss-up get away from them on a weird play in the ninth.
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“I was trying to keep it in front of me, but it bounced hard off my chest,” Vázquez said. “And it was a tough one.”
This was a night of taking the good with the bad. Vázquez also was picked off at second base when he tried to get too aggressive with his secondary lead, and he made a bad throw on a stolen base attempt in the ninth (which allowed the eventual winning run to move up to third base), but he also had two of the four Red Sox hits, and navigated the pitching staff through one of its best nights of the season.
It was the same good-with-the-bad for outfielder Hunter Renfroe, who also made an out on the bases. He was thrown out at home trying to score on a Vázquez single in the seventh, but he also made a tremendous leaping catch to keep the no-hitter alive in the fifth.
Then there was the pitching. The game ended on Barnes’ wild pitch, but entering in relief after Pivetta’s tremendous start, Josh Taylor extended his scoreless streak to 22 consecutive games — and Adam Ottavino pitched out of trouble after Darwinzon Hernandez lost the no-hitter in the eighth. The Rays had scored 13 runs the previous two nights, but the Red Sox kept them in check for most of this one.
“I thought my curveball was really sharp early,” Pivetta said. “It was spinning really nice. I had a good fastball. Just trying to keep them off-balance. That’s the biggest thing, mixing my curveball and mixing my fastball, using my slider when I needed to. I threw a couple changeups tonight, which was really good. Kept them off-balance really well.”
Pivetta had a 3.16 ERA in his first eight starts this year, but he’d pitched to a 5.97 ERA over his past six. The bounce-back performance was a big one, and came when the Red Sox needed it following Richards’ flop on Wednesday. Even so, Cora said it was an easy call to pull the 28-year-old for Taylor in the seventh, despite the no-hitter being intact.
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“I don’t know how I would have reacted if we had the lead,” Cora said.
Pivetta had thrown more than 103 pitches only once this season.
“I could throw all day if I really needed to,” he said. “In a certain situation, what’s more important is winning baseball games and using matchups. It probably would’ve taken me 140, 150, 160 pitches (to finish it). Can’t predict the future, can’t say what would’ve happened. It was the right call on AC’s part. It made the most sense. We’re all about winning the series. It didn’t happen today, but it was the right call.”
(Photo of Nick Pivetta: Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)
