TORONTO—Tanner Houck pitched five shutout innings, Wilyer Abreu reached base three times and the Boston Red Sox extended their winning streak to three games with a 4-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night.
The Red Sox opened their final road trip—a three-game set in Toronto—by improving to 4-0 in Canada this season.
Boston used 10 walks and five hits to win its 79th game. The Red Sox finished 78-84 in each of the last two seasons.
“We needed to be relentless in the strike zone and we were,” manager Alex Cora said. “Guys did an amazing job working counts, taking their walks.”
Abreu walked and scored on Vaughn Grissom’s sacrifice fly in the second, hit an RBI double in the third, and singled in the fifth, joining Jarren Duran as the only Boston players with multiple hits.
Houck (9-10) carried a perfect game into the fifth inning before walking Addison Barger with two outs. Ernie Clement followed with a single, but the 28-year-old right-hander got Jonatan Clase to fly out. Houck threw just 57 pitches, 36 strikes, in his first winning start since July 11 against Oakland.
“Felt good with everything, felt in synch with the body, felt strong,” Houck said. “I just went out there, trusted the defense and pounded the zone the whole night. It kind of felt like I had command over all the pitches.”
Houck made his 30th start of the season, reaching the mark for the first time.
“As a starter, that’s kind of what you strive for,” he said.
Leo Jiménez and George Springer hit back-to-back singles off Greg Weissert to start the sixth inning for Toronto, but Nathan Lukes grounded into a double play and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. grounded out to end the threat.
Guerrero went 0 for 4 and saw his average slip to .324.
Boston left-hander Zach Penrod got two outs in the seventh and right-hander Luis Guerrero pitched 1 1/3 innings before righty Chris Martin pitched around Spencer Horwitz’s RBI single in the ninth.
Blue Jays right-hander Chris Bassitt (10-14) walked a career-high seven in 4 1/3 innings, two of which came around to score. The 35-year-old right-hander was charged with three runs and four hits, losing his second consecutive start against Boston.
Bassitt has won just once in his last eight outings, but insisted he wants to make his final start of the year against Miami in Game 162 on Sunday.
“I’m healthy, I’m good, so I’m going to start,” Bassitt said. “I don’t believe that just because it’s the last game and we’re out of it, I shouldn’t throw. That’s kind of, I wouldn’t say embarrassing, but it’s not fair to the bullpen.”
