As trends go, it’s modest rather than audacious. Nonetheless, for a 2019 Red Sox team that had been eager to find a consistent stride, one of many mild milestones achieved on Friday night stood above all others.
Finally, 14 games into the season, the Red Sox can lay claim to their first instance of winning two consecutive contests. Credit for the development, which occurred in the form of a tidy, 6-4 victory at Fenway Park over the Orioles, came from a roster demographic that previously had been an impediment rather than an aid to the team’s success.
Eduardo Rodriguez delivered a dominant outing, in the process becoming the first Red Sox starter to earn a victory, to pitch into the seventh inning, and to entrust a lead to his bullpen.
“We needed him to go deep in the game,” said manager Alex Cora. “He did an outstanding job.”
Rodriguez came out firing. A pitcher whose fastball velocity had been puzzlingly down around 91-92 mph both through spring training and in his first two starts of the regular season worked with Pedro Martinez following his prior outing against Oakland on April 4. Martinez helped Rodriguez to remain loose (rather than stiff) in his upper body as part of an effort to re-establish the mechanics the lefthander had when he debuted in the big leagues in 2015.
From the first pitch of the game, the results of those efforts became apparent. In his first two starts, Rodriguez hadn’t thrown a pitch above 93.7 mph; on Friday, he surpassed that standard dozens of times, topping out at 95.7 mph. Each of his 10 pitches in the first inning was a four-seam fastball; each came out of his hand at a higher velocity than any prior pitch he’d thrown in 2019.
“I said, ‘I’ve got my fastball,’” recounted Rodriguez. “I was in command. I started throwing it a lot more. I was feeling really good. . . . I had the fastball right where I wanted it most of the game, so that set up my other pitches, too.”
Indeed, the effect of his explosive fastball was twofold: It allowed Rodriguez to get swings-and-misses on his primary offering, and also left the Orioles flailing when his changeup dove to and below the bottom of the strike zone. Rodriguez punched out eight, walked none, and elicited 21 swings-and-misses against Baltimore — 10 on fastballs, 10 on changeups, and one on a cutter. The outing was the second of his career in which he pitched more than six innings without walking a batter.
Rodriguez (1-2, 7.98 ERA) allowed three hits in 6⅔ innings, the lone blemish his final pitch of the night — a hanging changeup that O’s outfielder Dwight Smith Jr. blasted down the line for a two-run homer.
“You’re going to see a lot of starters doing this now, from here out. I know that,” said Rodriguez. “You will see a lot more of this.”
Rodriguez pitched from ahead thanks to an offense that scored early and featured a sustained attack against David Hess (1-2, 3.32) and the Orioles. Andrew Benintendi kickstarted the scoring in the third inning by staying on a Hess changeup that was down and away, lifting the ball to the opposite field, where it cleared the Green Monster for his first homer of 2019 — and just the second Wall-clearing shot of his career at Fenway.
“As a lefty, you know that you can hit a ball off the wall and you don’t have to necessarily hit it that well,” said Benintendi. “I haven’t been able to hit one over it that much, so that was nice to see it go over.”
A more collaborative effort ensued in the fourth inning, when the surging Mitch Moreland (2 for 4 with a single and double; he’s hitting .295 with a .750 slugging mark) led off with a single and scored on a one-out double that Xander Bogaerts clobbered off the Wall in left-center. With two outs, Bogaerts scored easily when Eduardo Nunez smoked a run-scoring single off the Wall to put the Red Sox up, 3-0.
After the Smith homer narrowed the margin to a single run, the Red Sox responded in the seventh by adding on another run on a run-scoring wild pitch.
Brandon Workman seemed in danger of giving the run back in the top of the eighth, issuing a two-out walk to Jonathan Villar. Joey Rickard then smashed a cookie of a cutter to deep center, but as he is wont to do, Jackie Bradley Jr. scaled the wall to make a leaping catch that denied Baltimore a run-scoring double.
“He won the Gold Glove for a reason,” said Cora. “He’s the best defensive center fielder in the big leagues.”
The Sox doubled their advantage with an opportunistic rally — a J.D. Martinez leadoff double, a pair of infield hits, a sac bunt, and a sac fly — to open a 6-2 lead in the eighth. That extra cushion proved crucial, as Tyler Thornburg gave up a massive two-run homer to Renato Nunez to narrow the advantage to 6-4.
That stumble forced the Sox to summon Ryan Brasier into the game, with the righthander quickly recording a pair of outs — a Hanser Alberto bunt that Brasier handled, and a soft liner to second baseman Nunez by pinch-hitter Chris Davis (0-for-54 since last Sept. 14) — to record his third save of the season.
The second straight night of congratulatory high-fives offer the Red Sox hope that perhaps, finally, they are laying a foundation upon which they can build.
“Maybe we’re just starting to hit our stride or getting back to what we’re used to,” said Benintendi. “Hopefully we’re trending in that direction.”
Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @alexspeier.