Mike Carp went 3-for-3 and the Red Sox had no trouble with one of the league's hottest pitchers, Indians righty Justin Masterson.
CLEVELAND — Mike Carp's first start for the Red Sox on Wednesday looked nothing like his three pinch-hit and his spring-training performances.
Red Sox manager John Farrell said the night before, when he announced Carp would play, that the expectation was rust. Carp had three at-bats the whole season, and just two before pinch hitting Tuesday.
Playing first base, Carp doubled twice and tripled and the Red Sox cooled one of the majors' best pitchers to start the season, Justin Masterson, in a 6-3 win over the Indians. The triple was a foot away from going out to center.
"It's definitely a tough job, but I think I'm better prepared now," Carp said of coming off the bench. "The coaching staff's been doing a great job of trying to give me a heads up, letting me know when I'm going to play, give me some work. The other day I got to face Doubront in live BP which helped keep me focused a little more, it was nice."
Carp never had three extra-base hits in a game before. He's a hot hand, but he said he didn't know if he'd be back in the lineup Wednesday. He was pinch hit for ahead of what would have been his fourth at-bat Tuesday, with lefty Rich Hill on the mound. The Red Sox are facing righty starters through the weekend series with the Royals, so Farrell likely wanted to get Gomes some work against a tough lefty.
Carp made his manager look great.
"I didn’t know that he’d do that," Farrell said. "I just felt like he’s a good fastball hitter. Again, we talked about getting a number of lefties in the lineup. you know what, he swung the bat very good. to get the basehit inside the third base bag to start things off, just did a heck of a job for us.”
The Sox have won their first three road series of the season for the first time since 2002, so that makes Farrell look good too. But he had a sixth inning to forget.
Starter Alfredo Aceves was left in too long in the sixth, an inning he began with Boston up 5-0 and 87 pitches thrown. Then he let up back-to-back solo home runs to the ex-Yankees duo of Nick Swisher and Jason Giambi. Giambi's homer came on pitch No. 102. A mound meeting wasn't the end: Mark Reynolds doubled four pitches later, and that was all, with no outs recorded in the sixth.
Still, Aceves allowed just three runs.
“Got a shutout going, not to think that he’s going to go a full nine," Farrell said. "But once again, just trying to take some of the work load off the bullpen. The sixth would have been his last inning, even if he came out of it with a zero. That was the thought right there.”
Masterson came into Wednesday with a 19-inning scoreless streak and an 0.41 ERA — the lowest ERA by any pitcher in the majors through the first three starts of the season since 2009. Boston jumped early, and they haven't faltered yet when scoring first: they're a perfect 9-0.
The first five Sox reached against Masterson, via four hits and one hit-by-pitch. Two of the three first-inning runs came home on Mike Napoli's single.
Masterson let up 11 hits, but was fortunate to escape with just four runs allowed in five innings. He worked out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the second, and another bases-loaded jam in the fourth.
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