Marwin Gonzalez is a baseball player. Despite playing multiple positions on any given day, manager Alex Cora is certain his veteran utilityman will make the smart baseball play. In a sense, Gonzalez’s play and the ultimate success of his team is largely based on what the game calls for.
In the eighth inning Saturday, the Red Sox just needed one run. A run that would enable them to hand the ball to their dominant closer this season, Matt Barnes, to shut the door on a Chicago White Sox team that had given the Red Sox its best punch.
Yet when the switch-hitting Gonzalez stepped to the plate to lead off that bottom frame against White Sox reliever, Codi Heuer, Gonzalez knew what that one run represented.
So, on the third pitch of the at-bat, Gonzalez who was without an extra-base hit in his first 12 games this year, drilled a high sinker beyond the wall in right-center. The go-ahead homer paved the way for a four-run Sox inning and an eventual 7-4 win.
Red Sox starter Nick Pivetta is prone to the walk. In his first two starts, Pivetta walked 5.7 batters per nine innings. Yet in the midst of that, Pivetta has, somehow, avoided the big inning. In his Saturday start against the Chicago White Sox, Pivetta remained true to form.
In the top of the first inning Pivetta struck out White Sox leadoff hitter Tim Anderson, but immediately walked the next two batters, Adam Eaton and Yoán Moncada. It came back to haunt the Red Sox and Pivetta when White Sox four-hole hitter, José Abreu, stung a double past a diving Rafael Devers. The ball trickled into the corner in left field, allowing Moncada to score all the way from first and give Chicago an early 2-0 lead.
The Red Sox battled back in the third however, following Kiké Hernández’s double to lead things off. A passed ball moved Hernández to third and Alex Verdugo’s sacrifice fly scored the Sox’ first run of the contest. The Red Sox scored once more on a sacrifice fly that inning. J.D. Martinez’s broken bat single found green space in center followed by Xander Bogaerts’s single to center which moved Martinez to third. Devers then laced a liner to Eaton in right that was deep enough to score Martinez from third.
In the fourth, Pivetta recorded the first two outs of the frame, but was up to 83 pitches. That’s when manager Alex Cora made the shrewd decision to go to his bullpen, calling on lefthander Josh Taylor from the bullpen to face Eaton, who fanned Eaton on a 3-2 slider.
While Pivetta lasted just 3⅔ innings, Dylan Cease saw his outing cut short after 4⅔. White Sox manager Tony La Russa called on reliever Evan Marshall to finish off the fifth and it appeared he would get through the entire sixth unscathed. Yet with two outs in the frame, Kevin Plawecki laced a double to the center field wall, and Hernández then singled up the middle, giving the Sox their first lead of the game.
They didn’t have the lead for long, though. Anderson, who was hitless leading up to the seventh, drilled a single off Matt Andriese, who to that point, had thrown two innings of scoreless baseball. A sacrifice fly ultimately scored Anderson which tied the game again, 3-3.
Julian McWilliams can be reached at julian.mcwilliams@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @byJulianMack.
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April 18, 2021 at 06:48AM
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Marwin Gonzalez homer sparks four-run burst in the eighth inning as Red Sox beat White Sox - The Boston Globe
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