After a four-homer night to begin the weekend series, the Boston Red Sox will look to keep the bats hot when they visit the Pittsburgh Pirates again on Saturday afternoon.
Boston improved to 8-3 on the road with a dominant 8-1 win Friday in Pittsburgh.
Wilyer Abreu, who went 3-for-5, joined Rob Refsnyder and Ceddanne Rafaela in hitting their first homers of the season for the Red Sox. Teammate Triston Casas hit his sixth home run.
“It looks like some of the younger guys are settling in and having some really good at-bats,” Refsnyder said. “Everyone was swinging it (on Friday).”
It was also a memorable night out of the Boston bullpen for Cam Booser, the 31-year-old who made his MLB debut after a dominant season to date with Triple-A Worcester.
“(It was) our best game of the season, but him (debuting) tops everything,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said of Booser, who made a baseball comeback years after dealing with various injuries.
Boston right-hander Kutter Crawford (0-0, 0.42 ERA) will start on Saturday. He has thrown consecutive scoreless, two-hit outings of late, helping a starting rotation that boasts a 1.71 ERA through 110 innings this season.
The 28-year-old worked 5 2/3 innings in his start against the Cleveland Guardians on Monday, but the Red Sox ultimately lost 6-0.
“He worked hard in the offseason to maintain his stuff from pitch 75 to pitch 100. Something he didn’t do last year,” Cora said. “He kind of hit the wall around that part of the game. Now the fastball’s playing, the cutter is good, the split was OK.”
Crawford made his only career start against Pittsburgh on April 3, 2023, allowing seven runs on eight hits — including three homers — across four innings in an eventual 7-6 loss at Fenway Park.
The Pirates, who have lost four straight, had hoped they left their offensive struggles in New York against the Mets, but the trend continued with a third straight one-run output on Friday.
Brayan Bello allowed just one hit — a Jack Suwinski double in the second inning — through his start on Friday, and the game was scoreless on the Pirates’ side until the ninth.
“I think we’re continuing to trend in the right direction,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said of Suwinski. “He’s having better at-bats. “I think he’s in a better spot than he was five or six days ago.”
Pittsburgh on Saturday will hand the ball to right-hander Mitch Keller (2-1, 4.50 ERA), who is looking to win his third straight start following a season-long seven innings of two-run ball against the Philadelphia Phillies last Sunday.
Keller had a mix that was working well in his last start.
“When I’ve got both the two-seam and four-seam working, everything just plays up,” he said.
The Pirates’ Opening Day starter for the second straight season, Keller has worked 35 straight starts of at least five innings and has gone 8-3 in 15 home starts since the beginning of the 2023 season.
Keller is 1-1 with a 5.00 ERA over two career starts against Boston. He struck out seven while giving up just one run and four hits in seven innings of a 4-1 win on April 5, 2023.
–Field Level Media
