Boston Red Sox: 3 great takeaways from Chicago White Sox series

No. 2: The  Boston Red Sox starters didn’t look as strong during this series

Part of the reason the Boston Red Sox reeled off nine straight wins after getting swept by the Baltimore Orioles to open the season was that they got fantastic outings from their starting pitchers.

While it is certainly unreasonable to expect this group to be able to lead the team, they certainly weren’t as good this past series against a strong White Sox lineup.

Nick Pivetta opened up the series by only managing to go 3 and 2/3 innings, which meant it was going to be a heavy bullpen game. Pivetta has struggled with his control at times to open the season, and Saturday’s opener against Chicago was easily his worst showing so far this season, as hitters were working him deep into the counts, and he ended up administering four walks in his short stint.

Luckily Matt Andriese came out of the pen in relief and provided three solid innings of work to keep Boston in a game they would ultimately end up winning.

Tanner Houck got recalled from the alternate site to pitch in the first game of the doubleheader, and while he actually pitched a pretty decent game, he was out-pitched by Dallas Keuchel on the other side.

Houck has typically racked up strikeouts in his previous outings, but he was only able to fan two batters this time around, as Chicago’s batters consistently found ways to put the ball in play against the young right-hander. He also got no support from the starting lineup, which certainly didn’t help his cause, but Houck’s record on the season now sits at 0-2.

Martin Perez certainly didn’t do much better in the second half of the doubleheader, as he only lasted 3 and 2/3 innings as well. Perez was dealing up until the fourth inning when he ran into trouble he couldn’t escape, and ended up giving up three runs that would decide the outcome of the game.

Perez was certainly on a shorter leash due to doubleheader games now being seven innings long, but it was disappointing to see him get pulled only halfway through the contest.

Nathan Eovaldi had easily the best outing of the group, but it was partially due to him pitching with a huge lead in all but one inning.

Eovaldi struck out 10 batters, but also gave up four runs on nine hits, which was fine on a day like today, but could easily have led to a loss under different circumstances. While the starters were still pretty solid for the most part, it was definitely a decline in performance considering what we’ve seen so far on the season.