Carlos Santana and Andrew McCutchen each had two hits, and Mitch Keller pitched seven innings as the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the host Boston Red Sox 4-1 Wednesday afternoon to complete a three-game sweep.
Santana hit a fourth-inning homer and finished with two RBIs.
Keller (1-0) worked seven innings, striking out seven while allowing just one run on four hits and two walks. He threw 107 pitches.
Christian Arroyo went 2-for-3 with an RBI while Triston Casas doubled and scored for the Red Sox, who were held to just five hits.
It remained a scoreless game until the fourth when Santana snuck a leadoff solo homer inside Pesky’s Pole in right to give Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead.
Boston starter Corey Kluber (0-2) pitched five innings of one-run, three-hit ball in a strong bounce-back start for Boston, retiring 14 of the last 15 batters he faced.
Pittsburgh extended with a run in the sixth and two more in the seventh.
After John Schreiber replaced Kluber in the sixth, Bryan Reynolds immediately doubled to left and moved to third on McCutchen’s infield single.
Santana’s strikeout marked the first out of the inning, but Ke’Bryan Hayes executed a perfect safety squeeze toward first base that went for a run-scoring single and doubled the Pirates’ lead.
The Pirates made it 4-0 with a two-run seventh.
Jason Delay socked a leadoff double to center and got to third safely when Casas threw across the diamond from first to try to cut down the lead runner on Oneil Cruz’s fielder’s choice grounder. Reynolds lifted a sacrifice fly to left and Santana lined a two-out run-scoring double to right.
Cruz suffered an apparent injury while colliding with Rafael Devers during his slide. He originally remained in the game before being replaced between innings.
The Red Sox put together some two-out offense to break the shutout in their half of the seventh. Casas doubled and scored on Arroyo’s hard-hit single that bounced over the second base bag.
Reece McGuire lifted a high fly to right that was originally called a game-tying homer, but the score remained 4-1 Pittsburgh after replay review deemed that the ball was foul.
Duane Underwood Jr. earned the save for Pittsburgh, working around a Justin Turner hit in the ninth.
–Field Level Media
