BOSTON — For all the running taking place outside Fenway Park on Monday, not much was adding up around the diamond in the run department early on. With the Boston Marathon swarming throughout the city’s streets, Guardians and Red Sox hitters traded moon shots for most of the day, but had nothing to show for it in the scoring column.
Their mutual run prevention society came to a crashing halt, however, with one Will Brennan pinch-hit appearance in the seventh inning.
Brennan, a Red Sox fan growing up in Stillwell, Kansas, wrapped a two-run home run around Pesky’s Pole in right field to break a scoreless tie and spark a 6-0 Guardians win. Tim Herrin (1-0, 1.04) struck out three in two scoreless innings of relief work for his first win of the season and second of his career. Herrin picked up where Xzavion Curry left off after five scoreless innings in his season debut.
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It’s Cleveland’s sixth win in eight matchups against Boston on Patriots’ Day, and the third straight loss on Marathon Monday overall for the Red Sox.
It also marked the second consecutive day Guardians manager Stephen Vogt has called on a pinch hitter who delivered a home run late in the game. On Sunday, Estevan Florial came up big in a similar spot against the Yankees. Vogt called Brennan’s at-bat his best of the season, regardless of the result.
“He was on the fastball, he was fighting off the offspeed,” Vogt said. “Will’s been a little in-between up to this point, so to see him committing to the best fastball and then be able to make an adjustment on a breaking ball in the zone, it was really good to see and a huge moment for him. Huge moment for us.”
Brennan’s home run was the second time he bent a fly ball around Pesky’s Pole, the Boston landmark named for Red Sox legend Johnny Pesky, and one Brennan was intimately familiar with growing up as a big Sox fan.
Facing Boston reliever Greg Weissert with Josh Naylor aboard in the seventh, Brennan battled for seven pitches before he pulled the last slider he saw down the right field line for his first homer of the season. The at-bat, and the result, were much needed, Brennan said afterward.
“The past, probably 10 to 15 have been pretty poor, but that’s baseball,” Brennan said. “You’ve got to be able to get back in the box and be prepared and have an eight-pitch at-bat that either leads to success or to failure and luckily there it led us to a success.”
Cleveland added a pair of runs in the eighth against Boston’s Josh Winckowski as Brayan Rocchio walked and stole second before moving to third on a base hit by Steven Kwan. Ramírez then sent a smash to first that deflected off the glove of Triston Casas and past second baseman Enmanuel Valdez. Wilyer Abreu’s errant throw from right field glanced off a hustling Ramírez as Rocchio and Kwan both scored to give the Guards a four-run advantage.
“When your best player has a hustle double it takes care of all the rest,” Vogt said. “These guys live it. These guys want to run the bases hard. That’s how we play. We take the extra base, we look for that, but for him to go right in his face like that and make something happen, it leads to an extra run. That’s José Ramírez. I mean, he is fun to watch.”
Kwan, meanwhile, extended his hitting streak to seven games. He has hit safely in each of his eight career games at Fenway, and his 26 hits through Cleveland’s first 16 games are the most since Victor Martinez collected 26 in 2009.
Curry twirled five shutout innings, allowing a walk and just two hits. Activated from the 15-day injured list after working his way back from a viral infection during spring training, the right-hander was efficient early, relying on a sharp slider to put Boston hitters away.
“That’s a pitch that I’ve gone to throughout my career,” Curry said. “I’ve been trying to really hone in with. It can help me play off other pitches. To have that working today and to be able to locate that early, I feel like that really helped.”
Vogt praised Curry’s effort, noting that he had maxed out at 59 pitches in rehab outings prior to Monday’s contest.
“For him to go out and be that efficient with his pitches is exactly what we needed,” Vogt said. “He came out and attacked and was living ahead and putting guys away. It was beautiful.”
Boston’s Kutter Crawford matched Curry inning for inning, allowing only a one-out triple by Gabriel Arias in the third, and a base hit by Arias in the sixth to go along with six strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings. Arias added an RBI double in the ninth for his third career game with multiple extra-base hits. He has six hits in his last 10 at-bats dating back to the start of the Yankees series last week.
Vogt said it has been fun watching Arias find his rhythm in the last couple of days.
“He made a little adjustment with his hands and it seems to be giving him a lot more rhythm,” Vogt said. “He’s on time and he’s hitting the ball hard.”
Outfielders on both sides turned in outstanding defense, taking away hits and home runs to keep things scoreless through six innings. Ramírez sent a drive to right field in the first that Abreu snagged just before hitting the wall. It would have been a home run in 20 out of 30 big league ballparks, according to StatCast.
Boston’s Rafael Devers drilled a shot to center in the third that carried 369 feet and had a .750 expected batting average, but Tyler Freeman tracked it down in front of Fenway’s Bermuda Triangle for the final out of the inning. Andrés Giménez amd Tyler O’Neill both sent drives into the stratosphere in the fourth that eventually wound up nestled in an outfielder’s glove.
Brennan, who took over in center for Freeman after pinch-hitting, tracked down a towering fly ball by Red Sox shortstop Ceddanne Rafaela that carried 400 feet to center field and had an expected batting average of .470.
Cleveland improved to 8-2 on the road and is 8-0 this year when scoring first. Guardians pitchers held an opponent scoreless for the fourth time, the most shutouts in the majors this season.
Next: The series continues Tuesday from Fenway Park. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. The Guardians will send right-hander Tanner Bibee (1-0, 5.93) to the mound while the Red Sox counter with righty Garrett Whitlock (1-0, 1.26). The game will air on Bally Sports Great Lakes, WTAM 1100 AM, WMMS 100.7 FM and the Guardians Radio Network.
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