Red Sox Might Implement This ‘Intriguing’ Strategy Used By Giants

The Giants took two of three games from the Red Sox, but San Francisco might have helped Boston over the weekend.

Gape Kapler’s club employed an interesting pitching strategy for the series at Oracle Park. The Giants opted for openers for the set’s final two games, with typical starters entering the contest after a few innings. It paid dividends for Sean Manaea (4 2/3 scoreless innings) on Saturday and Ross Stripling (one run across 4 1/3 innings) on Sunday, and both games saw San Francisco come out on top.

The tactic caught the attention of Alex Cora, who’s needed to get creative with his pitching staff the last month-plus with several starters on the injured list.

“What they’re doing is interesting, with all their starters in the bullpen and kind of like mixing and matching and going to three innings,” Alex Cora told reporters before Sunday’s game, per The Boston Globe. “That’s something that intrigues me. It puts the other manager (in a situation of), ‘How are we going to do this?’ So maybe we can go that route.”

The Red Sox have kind of dipped their toe into that strategy with Nick Pivetta, who’s found success as the long man out of the bullpen since he was bumped from Boston’s rotation. It will be interesting to see how Pivetta fares Monday night when he makes his first start since May 16.

If Pivetta struggles in Seattle, it might motivate Cora to stash more pitchers capable of long innings in the ‘pen.