FORT MYERS, Fla. -- It feels a little bit like Game 3 again, doesn't it?

As it was that endless night at Dodger Stadium in October 2018, when his six relief innings on just one day of rest basically allowed the Red Sox to live to fight another day, Nathan Eovaldi has outsize importance to this Boston pitching staff. David Price went west, Chris Sale is back on the shelf with a flexor strain and the threat of surgical intervention still hanging in the air, and any hope the Red Sox have of surprising people amid an organizational reset relies on the starting staff outperforming expectations.

So Eovaldi's spotless spring has been a tonic in an otherwise challenging camp, and it continued with three scoreless innings in a 5-2 win over the Blue Jays in a split-squad Saturday afternoon at JetBlue Park. Eovaldi continued to build up confidence, optimism, trade value, you name it.

"It was," he said, "a good day of work."

He's had a few of those this spring.

Eovaldi came out firing again with a 97-mph fastball to open the day and another to get the final swinging strike of a first inning in which he pitched through some rare traffic. By the time his day was done, he had thrown 57 pitches to get through the short stint, he had nits to pick with his splitter and he had finally walked a guy.

Ultimately, though, Eovaldi has still yet to allow a run, he's struck out 41.4% of batters faced in the Grapefruit League, and his overall command even while running his fastball up to triple digits has been unusually sharp for this early stage.

Things are going well, in other words.

"This early, it's really about as good as it can get," interim manager Ron Roenicke said. "To have the command of your pitches as early as this, it's got to be huge for his confidence. … The most impressive thing for me has been his offspeed pitches, because he's been able to throw them down in the zone where he wants to."

None of this matters if Eovaldi grabs his arm or posts a 6.00 April ERA, as he did a year ago. But whereas last year was a slow play with loose bodies in his elbow after the deep 2018 run and yeoman's effort in the World Series, Eovaldi is operating off a more satisfying script this spring. And that is a statement meant to be taken literally, because Eovaldi documented every detail of his 2019 in journal form so that he could begin his winter throwing program with an accurate sense of where he left off.

"My second-to-last start against the Rays [on Sept. 22], I had one of my most swings and misses [20 in all] ever," he said. "So I felt coming in here this spring with [pitching coach Dave] Bush and Walk [assistant pitching coach Kevin Walker] and [bullpen coach Craig Bjornson], we picked up where we left off last year. I think that's why my offspeed's been so good in camp."

In the midst of the winter, when the new-look front office fronted by Chaim Bloom explored means of getting under the luxury tax threshold, the three years and $51 million still owed to Eovaldi -- along with his iffy injury history -- significantly dampened his value. Obviously, the Red Sox got an entirely different deal done instead.

Eovaldi, therefore, is still here, and perhaps there will be serious eyes upon him come July if the Red Sox's season goes south. But for now, he's a big piece in ensuring that doesn't happen. Until or unless Sale returns, Eovaldi and Eduardo Rodriguez are the last remnants of a once-stout starters' group, and so the spring results, non-binding though they may be, take on more resonance than they regularly would.

The stakes are nowhere near as high as they were in Game 3, but the feeling is the same. Much was asked of Eovaldi that night, and much is being asked of him now.

"We've got a deadly lineup., and a lot of the guys are still here," he said. "We're still going to put up a lot of runs. It's just that the pitching has to keep us in ballgames."