BOSTON — Zack Wheeler was almost untouchable for seven-plus innings, Kyle Schwarber hit his 17th homer in the first, and the Philadelphia Phillies held off the Boston Red Sox 2-1 on Tuesday night at Fenway Park.
Wheeler needed just 16 pitches through three innings, a pace that left Boston chasing from the start and turned a tight game into a test of endurance. He finished with 7 1/3 innings of one-run ball, allowing six hits, one hit batsman, no walks and four strikeouts as the Phillies won in two hours and 29 minutes.
The only damage against Wheeler came early and late, but never in a way that truly cracked the game open. He hit Masataka Yoshida with the first pitch of the second inning, then gave up a leadoff single to Marcelo Mayer in the third, but Trevor Story grounded into a double play and Caleb Durbin followed with another after the Red Sox had their first baserunners. Boston did not put multiple men on base until the seventh.
That is when the inning finally bent. Mickey Gasper opened with a single, and the Red Sox started to force Wheeler into longer at-bats. Ceddanne Rafaela later lined a two-out single to shallow right to end Wheeler’s shutout bid and cut the Phillies’ lead to one, but that was as close as Boston got. Wilyer Abreu also sent one to the Fenway warning track on a flyout that would have left any of the other 29 major league parks.
Boston’s offense never matched the urgency of the Phillies’ starter. Brayan Bello limited Philadelphia to one earned run on four hits and one walk, but the Red Sox again lacked the big swing that might have changed the night. Club officials spent the offseason saying power hitting was a priority, yet the lineup entered the game with a combined 29 home runs and the fourth-lowest run total in the majors. The club also never made an offer to Kyle Schwarber when he briefly reached free agency before re-signing with Philadelphia, a choice that looked sharper with every jump off his bat at Fenway.
Chad Tracy said Wheeler was “cruising” before the game tightened, and he said the sixth inning on brought better at-bats as Boston finally started to try to drag things out. He said the group knew it needed a two-out hit, and that one never came. Wheeler’s 16 pitches after three innings were the fewest by any major league starter through the first three innings since at least 2000, and the fewest pitches in a nine-inning outing since 1988 were 74 by Carlos Silva in 2005 and Aaron Cook in 2007. On Tuesday, Boston came up well short of either number, and the Phillies left Fenway with the kind of win that travels.
