BOSTON—Rookie Wilyer Abreu knocked out a single, double, and his first career triple, Cooper Criswell pitched five scoreless innings, and the Boston Red Sox beat the San Francisco Giants 4–0 on Tuesday night for their major league-leading sixth shutout.
Abreu, who finished a home run shy of hitting for the cycle, helped Boston win its third straight game. Jarren Duran singled in his first three at-bats and drove in a run, and Rob Refsnyder had two RBI singles as the Red Sox quickly ended Giants’ ace Logan Webb’s streak of 19 consecutive scoreless innings.
Boston finished with 11 hits and drew six walks, taking a toll on San Francisco’s pitching on a crisp night.
“We stayed very humble tonight,” Boston Manager Alex Cora said. “There were no chases. We hit the ball the other way, not too many swings and misses. We’ll take the homers, but I think the at-bats are going to get better.”
Webb’s scoreless streak ended in the first inning with an RBI single by Refsnyder, and the game continued to slide from there. Webb, who didn’t make it out of the fourth inning, hadn’t allowed a run since April 7. Webb (3–2) surrendered four runs and nine hits, with four strikeouts and three walks, in 3 2/3 innings.
Criswell (2–1) had a much stronger night, holding the Giants to just two hits and striking out four in his five innings. San Francisco didn’t have a hit until Michael Conforto led off the fifth with a single. After a quick double play, Jorge Soler added a two-out single for the Giants, but that was their last hit until Wilmer Flores’ one-out single in the ninth.
“He just located well,” San Francisco third baseman Matt Chapman said of Criswell. “He was putting the ball where he wanted to for the most part, keeping guys off balance, and then we weren’t really able to get anything going.”
San Francisco finished with just four hits to match a season-low, and was shut out for the second time this year.
The Giants were able to limit the damage to just one run in each of the first four innings, although the Red Sox forced Webb to push his pitch count up to 55 by the end of the second. The third inning wasn’t much better for Webb. Abreu led off with a double, and Refsnyder followed with his second RBI single of the game.
Webb had to face Abreu again in the fourth, and the Red Sox rookie tagged him for an RBI triple to the corner in right field.