Red Sox score early and beat Blue Jays in another solid performance by Tanner Houck

TORONTO — As the regular season draws to a close, the Red Sox are realizing the mathematical challenges they face. Although they are not yet eliminated, too many teams are too far ahead of the Sox in the wild-card race for this year's edition of the club to have a realistic chance of playing in October.

Still, the final days of the season have shown that there are forces at play that can help the team get there in the future. In particular, the team's young core players are in a final sprint that could point to better days in future seasons.

On Monday, Tanner Houck made his 30th start of the year. In the Red Sox' 4-1 victory over the Blue Jays that put the Sox back above .500 (79-78), Houck went five scoreless innings, increasing his season total to 178⅔ innings and lowering his ERA to 3.12.

The right-hander was a model of efficiency. Despite conceding just one swing and miss, Houck (9-10) shut down the first 14 Blue Jays he faced, needing just 57 pitches to get through five innings in which he allowed just one hit and one walk and forced 10 ground ball outs.

“It's great, super efficient,” Houck said. “To do that, you have to work the zone hard.”

Houck joined Kutter Crawford in the 30-start club. On Tuesday, Brayan Bello will take the mound, making the duo a trio — making it the first trio of homegrown Red Sox starters to reach the 30-start mark in the same season since 1987, when Roger Clemens, Bruce Hurst and Al Nipper accomplished the feat.

“A huge step forward,” said Houck, who missed two starts this month because of shoulder fatigue and therefore worked with a modest throw count for the second year in a row, of reaching the 30-start mark. “It was really fun to watch the three of us grow, push our limits and barriers and get through those 162 together. It was awesome.”

The group hasn't just taken the ball one at a time. After a mid-summer struggle, the Sox' rotation has returned to its dominant form from the start of the season. The team's starters have a 1.39 ERA over their last six games, a 2.43 ERA over their last 27 games (best in MLB) and a 3.76 ERA on the season (sixth).

It's clear that the rotation now represents a foundation on which the Red Sox can build – especially if they target the kind of reinforcements at the top of the rotation next winter that they haven't made since trading Chris Sale after the 2016 season.

“They took a step forward and that was the plan for the season,” Sox manager Alex Cora said. “The way they finish the season, let's see what happens. They were great.”

While Houck was throwing the Blue Jays around the plate with his mix of sinkers, sliders and splitters, Toronto's counterpart Chris Bassitt suffered from a strike zone aversion, walking a career-high seven batters in 4⅓ innings. The Sox took advantage with a steady offensive streak, scoring a run each in the second (Vaughn Grissom sacrifice fly), third (Wilyer Abreu RBI double) and fourth (Ceddanne Rafaela RBI ground out) to take a 3-0 lead. The Sox scored another run in the eighth inning when Rafaela again had an RBI fielder's choice – he sprinted out of the box to prevent a potential inning-ending double play.

“The guys did a great job of running the counts and getting the walks,” Cora said. “When you do that, put the ball in play while guys are on third base and run down the line, good things happen.”

Behind Houck, the team got strong work from the bullpen: Greg Weissert got out of a tight spot to pitch a scoreless sixth inning, left-hander Zach Penrod got two outs in the seventh inning, and right-hander Luis Guerrero, with his rocket-like arm, got four outs and handed Chris Martin a 4-0 lead in the ninth inning.

Although Martin allowed one run, he escaped serious damage by getting Alejandro Kirk to complete a 4-6-3 double play that ended the game.

The Sox extended their winning streak to three games – their longest since August 4-6 – and picked up their 79th win of the season, surpassing the team's total wins from the past two years. The Sox also ensured they finish ahead of the Blue Jays in the standings, avoiding last place for the first time since 2021.

“Woo!” said Cora with mock enthusiasm for what he considered an unspectacular performance. “We have to keep going. Let's win tomorrow and keep going. Just win tomorrow and see where we are and finish strong. That's the goal. And overall, we will be over [the season] whenever we're done. Our goal is to make the playoffs, but the chances of that happening are very slim.”

Of course, the team hopes that in the years to come it will do more than just fight to have title hopes left at the end of the season, and the progress of the young Red Sox starters offers clues as to how that might happen.

“The sky is the limit as long as we all continue to push ourselves to be better and push each other to be better every day,” Houck said.

Alex Speier can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @alexspeier.