BOSTON – One of the three rookie lefties in the surging rotation for the Boston Red Sox, Jake Bennett did what has become the expected of late.
Bennett mowed down the opposition with precision, and on a big stage, too, outpitching Gerritt Cole as the Red Sox downed the Yankees, 4-1, for their third straight win in a four-game rivalry series that wraps up on Sunday night.
Sonny Gray surely knows what his job is.
That would be to stretch what is already the rotation’s longest string of quality starts in 38 years to 11 games.
Bennett made it a perfect 10 for the five-man group, holding the Yankees to three hits and one run over a career-high 6 1/3 innings.
“He was awesome. Another one added on to the quality start list,” said Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy. ”In the third inning, he locked in and was back in the zone.”
The zone is exactly what the entire rotation is in.
Over the past 10 games, the starting five of Gray, Ranger Suarez, Payton Tolle, Connelly Early and Bennett have a 1.69 ERA.
“When you really think about that, you know how difficult that is to do, to get 10 straight [starts] to go out there and throw you six or more [innings], with three or less runs, it’s pretty impressive,” said Tracy. “They've done an amazing job.”
The Red Sox have the rare rotation that has four lefties, which is what the alignment became when righty Brayan Bello was optioned to Triple-A Worcester on June 5 and replaced by Bennett, who was called up from the Minors for the second time this season.
There is absolutely a feeding frenzy going on with Boston’s southpaws. In other words, they all feed off each other, watching how the others attack an opponent and then taking it into their own game plans.
“Being able to go out and watch Tolle and Early throw and have such good success really kind of helped me formulate my game plan against these guys,” said Bennett.
Nobody wants to be the one who ends the quality start streak.
“Oh, absolutely,” said Bennett. “Everyone's throwing extremely well, and I think that just gives everyone the motivation to keep working hard and to keep doing it.”
And the relievers, who had a couple of letdowns in the series that preceded this one in Colorado, don’t want to let a great effort by a rotation member get wasted.
That left Justin Slaten determined to do his job when he came on for Bennett with two on and one out in the seventh.
The hard-throwing righty, who has had his share of struggles in June, punched out José Caballero and pinch-hitter Jazz Chisholm Jr. to preserve Bennett’s outing.
“Yeah, it's awesome,” said Slaten. “I just kick my feet up [in the bullpen] and watch the show. It's great. …
“Those guys are phenomenal. Every single one of them that has come up [from the Minors], they’ve gotten their opportunity, and they've just taken it and ran with it and proven that they are big league pitchers. And not only that, but they're doing it at a really high level. It's awesome to watch.”
Consider that Bennett hadn’t pitched above Double-A when Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow acquired him from the Nationals in a rare prospect-for-prospect trade in December for Luis Perales.
At the time, Breslow was bullish on Bennett’s extension and felt he was close to Major League ready.
That has turned out to be an accurate assessment thus far. In his four starts since replacing the struggling Bello, Bennett has a 2.78 ERA.
And he is doing it with a five-pitch mix.
“I thought [catcher Carlos Narváez] called a great game,” said Bennett. “We sprinkled in four-seams at the top, two-seams down, sweeper when we needed it, changeup. I mean, I just thought it was great.”
Even though ace Garrett Crochet hasn’t pitched since April 25 due to a left shoulder injury and is still weeks away from returning, the Sox don’t have any holes in their rotation right now.
The Yankees, who have the second-best record in the American League (48-34) by percentage points to the Rays, are seeing it up close.
“Those guys are pitching really well right now,” said Yankees catcher Austin Wells. “They're executing, and they're setting themselves up, getting early runs and being able to be aggressive in the zone on the pitching side.”