After winning their last five in a row, the Red Sox winning streak looked like it reached the end of road Tuesday night.
The Los Angeles Angels fired manager Joe Maddon earlier in the day and replaced him with Phil Nevin. Ordinarily, that sort of event would fire up a team -- even one that had lost its previous 12 games.
Add to that, the Angels took a quick 2-0 lead in the first on a two-run homer from Mike Trout, more proof that Trout was in the process of breaking out of a long, frustrating slump. And when the Angels kept rapping hits all over the ballpark off starter Garrett Whitlock, it looked for all the world that two streaks were destined to end on the same night -- the Sox' winning streak and the Angels' losing skid.
Then a funny thing happened: the Boston bullpen came to the rescue.
After Jake Diekman walked two and uncorked a wild pitch, leading to an Angels run in the fifth, the lockdown began,. Austin Davis, Hirokazu Sawamura, Tanner Houck and Matt Strahm took it from there, giving the Sox five shutout innings, with only one hit allowed.
Meanwhile, the Sox lineup clawed back with solo runs in the sixth and seventh to pull even. In the 10th, Christian Vazquez supplied an opposite-field run-scoring single to put the Sox on top, 6-5, which is how it ended after Strahm slammed the door in the bottom of the inning.
It's too soon to say that one impressive game signals a permanent turnaround for the Sox' bullpen. There have been a handful of games like this before Tuesday, and invariably, they were followed by collapses soon after. It was only the last homestand, in fact, in which the Sox coughed up a six-run lead to Baltimore.
At home.
So let's keep things in perspective.
Still, there's no doubting the effectiveness of the relievers. This was the kind of tag-team effort that was missing earlier in the season, when the Sox found novel ways to cough up leads, late, on the road.
Two underlying numbers from Tuesday illustrate how critical a role the bullpen played in the win: First, the victory was the first in extra innings on the road after the Sox had lost the first four. And it was also the first time the Sox had won a game all season in which they trailed after six innings.
If you can't rely on your bullpen to preserve a late-inning lead or tie, you're not going to get a chance to get to extra innings, much less win when you get there. And if the bullpen doesn't hold the opposition at bay when you're already behind after six innings, your offense is never going to catch up.
That the Sox achieved both Tuesday is significant.
So, too, is the beginning of some structure being formed in the pen, led by Houck. Houck was the most dominant of all five relievers deployed by the Sox, contributing two scoreless innings while racking up three strikeouts.
"That's what we're looking for,'' said Cora of Tanner's appearance. "We're going to use him in high-leverage situations. We'll try to avoid the three inning, the four inning stints. Maximum, he'll go two -- kind of like the way we used Garrett last year. He's been throwing the ball great for us. His stuff is really good late in games. That was really good for us.''
Think of Houck now as the center around which the rest of the bullpen revolves. If Houck can pitch the seventh and eighth inning three times per week, it won't much matter who's called upon -- Hansel Robles, Strahm or anyone else -- to get the final three outs in the ninth.
"This is where we're going,'' said Cora. "(Houck) is going to be a big part of what we're trying to accomplish. We're trending in the right direction.''
"I'm excited for it,'' said Houck of his newly designated role. "Anytime I can get the ball, go out there and pitch, I'm always going to be excited. I love being out there, I love being able to compete. It's a lot of fun in that situation -- gets the blood boiling, heart rate up. Living in the moment.''
It's remarkable that the Red Sox have climbed to two games over .500 with an unsettled bullpen, to say nothing of the inconsistent performances.
The offense has been going full throttle for the last month. The rotation has been solid from the start, and reached an apex in the last two weeks. Now, if the Red Sox can figure out their pen, they'll have the makings of a complete team.
Winning extra-inning games on the road against a desperate opponent is a good place to start.