BOSTON — On a night when Garrett Whitlock pitched well in Triple-A Worcester on a rehab assignment, Nick Pivetta took the mound with uncertainty about his future looming.
Pivetta has been vocal about wanting to remain in the rotation, but with diminishing returns on the mound, he may be forced to the bullpen as Whitlock gets closer to returning.
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On Tuesday, Pivetta squandered a four-run lead, allowing Seattle to climb back to tie the game 4-4, but managed to hold the Mariners at bay for another 1 ⅓ innings as the Red Sox offense bailed him out. Pivetta picked up the win in an eventual 9-4 decision that snapped the Red Sox’s four-game losing streak.
“He gave us enough, 5 ⅓ innings, four runs,” manager Alex Cora said. “When we’re swinging the bat well, that’s good enough for us.”
Relying on the offense to plug the holes in his sinking ship, though, isn’t a sustainable strategy and part of the reason why Pivetta might be pushed to the bullpen by this time next week. When asked if he could confirm Pivetta would make another start next week in Anaheim, Cora didn’t offer any guarantees.
“Right now, we don’t have the rotation in Anaheim,” he said. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, see where we’re at, what we’re going to do.”
The current six-man rotation won’t be feasible much longer with three off days coming within the next 10 days. Meanwhile, Whitlock allowed one run on a solo homer, surrendering five hits while not issuing a walk and striking out four over four innings in his first rehab start. He’s still scheduled to make one more rehab start Sunday for Worcester. Kutter Crawford pitched three innings in relief of Whitlock on Tuesday, allowing one run, and should be activated to rejoin the Red Sox bullpen by Friday.
Before the game, Cora was asked about the importance of pitchers needing to accept role changes, if necessary. Cora referenced his own days as a player.
“I actually didn’t like my utility role, to be honest with you, but I had to buy into it,” he said. “This is what you get. Obviously, it’s a tough conversation. Certain guys, I can tell you about, Garrett (Richards) and Martin (Perez) in ‘21 … it was telling them where we’re at. ‘This is what we need from you’ and they did a good job. They understood. They didn’t like it. But it’s still the big leagues, you’re part of the team, part of 26 guys, and you don’t have to understand it, but at the end, you have to accept it and go out there and do your job because if you don’t do your job, you’re not helping your cause in the future.”
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Pivetta hasn’t done much to help his own cause of late.
The Red Sox staked the right-hander to an early 4-0 lead thanks to a hustling play to lead off the game by Alex Verdugo on a ball bobbled by the second baseman. Masataka Yoshida tripled in the next at-bat scoring Verdugo before Justin Turner hit a two-run homer. Two batters later, Triston Casas hit a solo homer.
The Red Sox bats had scored two runs in their previous two games and just five runs in their previous three games. But they snapped out of their offensive doldrums quickly against one of the American League’s best starters. Luis Castillo entered the game with a 2.70 ERA, but the Red Sox tagged him for four runs in the first. He finished with seven runs allowed, five earned.
Pivetta held Seattle scoreless through three innings before it all unraveled in the fourth. He allowed a two-out single then walked the next batter. Teoscar Hernandez slammed a sinking liner to center that Jarren Duran dove for, but missed. The ball rolled all the way to the wall, scoring two runs. In the next at-bat No. 8 hitter Taylor Trammell crushed a two-run homer to erase the Red Sox lead.
But the offense rallied again as Verdugo led off the bottom of the fifth with a double and Yoshida added another double to score him. Yoshida advanced to third on a deep fly ball to right from Turner then scored on a wild pitch to make it 6-4. Duran followed with a solo homer to make it 7-4.
Pivetta had worked out of a jam in the fifth and came back in the sixth to record one out before turning the ball over to the bullpen.
“I’ve just got to execute pitches better,” Pivetta said. “But like I said, I was able to go out in the fifth and throw up a zero and continue to move on from there. Things are going to happen, balls are going to get put in play, the walk wasn’t necessarily great, but I competed.”
With a 6.30 ERA and 1.55 WHIP through eight starts, the Red Sox need more from Pivetta — but it might be coming from the bullpen when it does.
(Photo of Pivetta: Nathan Ray Seebeck / USA TODAY)
