Boston fell to the Minnesota Twins 8-4 at Fenway Park on Friday, as the Red Sox dropped their much-anticipated home opener.
The loss to the Twins was largely due to Red Sox starting pitcher Nick Pivetta’s shaky performance. He allowed four earned runs in just two innings of work.
“Nick early on, he didn’t have command,” Alex Cora said as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “His stuff wasn’t there.”
Pivetta echoed the same sentiment when asked by reporters about his velocity sitting a tick lower than usual.
“I wasn’t really in my legs,” Pivetta said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “I didn’t have that consistency with my velocity, like you said, just didn’t feel great.”
Pivetta knows his mechanics are off and appears confident that he will get things back in order after a tough start at Fenway.
“You go through little lapses here and there,” Pivetta said. “Sometimes it happens earlier than later, or in the middle, right now it just chose to come up in the second game. It’s disappointing and I just wanted to continue to go out there but I didn’t really deserve that.”
Here are some other notes from Red Sox-Twins:
— Cora did not waste any time turning to the bullpen on Friday. Phillips Valdez and Hirokazu Sawamura each threw two innings, while Ryan Brasier, Austin Davis and Matt Barnes finished up with an inning each.
“Where we were bullpen-wise, I decided to be aggressive,” Cora said. “We felt like we were rested enough to get our innings and stay in the game, and we did.”
— The Red Sox’s offense has really struggled to generate anything early.
“We need to do a better job early in the game,” Cora said. “In Detroit, they pounded the strike zone, we didn’t do too much. Today, (Twins pitcher Joe Ryan) had a good slider. (He) was working ahead, I mean, (he threw) seventy-something pitches in six innings. We got to do a better job with the starters.”
— The Red Sox’s offense talked about what Ryan did to keep them off balance.
“He mixed it up,” Jackie Bradley Jr. said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “He was able to locate a lot of his pitches early in the counts and kept us off balance.”
“He’s got a different angle than a lot of guys and his fastball seems like it rises a little bit,” Bobby Dalbec added, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “He mixed his offspeed in and out pretty well and his fastball in, out and up. He did a great job.”
— Bradley Jr. made his return to Fenway Park after a year with the Milwaukee Brewers.
“I’m thankful for all of the cheers and it’s good to be back,” Bradley said.
— Dalbec is happy to be back in Boston.
“It was awesome,” Dalbec said. “It’s always great to be back here. (The fans), show up every day, it’s a special place to play.”
He also put pressure on the team to play up to the crowd’s consistent efforts.
“The fan base is amazing,” Dalbec said. (The fans) show up every day so we have to as well.”
— The Red Sox will continue their series against the Twins on Saturday at 4:10 p.m. ET at Fenway Park.
