It feels like for the last couple of weeks a small contingent of Red Sox starting pitchers are auditioning to stay in that role in Boston’s crowded rotation.
Nick Pivetta seems to be among that group and despite earning the win with the Red Sox topping the Seattle Mariners, 9-4, on Tuesday night, manager Alex Cora was noncommittal about the veteran right-hander making his next scheduled start against the Los Angeles Angels.
“Right now, we don’t have the rotation for Anaheim,” Cora told reporters, as seen on NESN postgame coverage. “So, we’ll talk about it tomorrow. See where we’re at, what we’re going to do and we’ll see what we do.”
Aside from a bumpy fourth inning against the Mariners with Pivetta surrendering four runs in the stanza, two of which came on a two-run home run by Taylor Trammel, he performed well. He tossed three scoreless frames to begin the game and finished his night pitching 5 1/3 innings allowing four runs on six hits with six strikeouts.
Control was an issue for Pivetta, though. He let up a season-high four walks.
“He was good early on,” Cora said. “Kind of like ran out of gas in that (fourth) inning. Fastball down to Teoscar (Hernández) and we try to make the play and they scored two. I want to say it was a fastball, right, the homer. But gave us enough, 5 1/3, four runs. When we’re swinging the bat well, that’s good enough for us.”
It seemed as though Pivetta got somewhat of a sense he needed a strong performance to keep his spot in the rotation. Boston has recently used a six-man rotation and Garrett Whitlock’s impending return creates even more of a logjam.
After getting a couple of outs, Pivetta was animated coming off the mound, but he chalked that up to just being in the moment.
“Just going out there enjoying, having fun, being competitive. That’s what I do,” Pivetta told reporters, as seen on NESN postgame coverage. “Emotions come off. They go, they come for whatever reason. Just flow of the moment and how the game’s going.”
