The Toronto Blue Jays received nine scoreless innings from seven pitchers and beat the host Boston Red Sox 3-0 on Wednesday in the second game of a three-game series.
Max Scherzer was supposed to start for Toronto but was placed on the 15-day injured list with back spasms before Wednesday’s game. Braydon Fisher started and got the first four outs before he was replaced by Simeon Woods Richardson (1-7), who allowed three hits and walked three in three scoreless innings.
Mason Fluharty (one-third of an inning), Spencer Miles (1 1/3 innings), Jeff Hoffman (one inning), Tyler Rogers (one inning) and Louis Varland (one inning) also pitched for Toronto, which opened the series with a 6-1 victory over Boston on Tuesday. Varland struck out the side in the ninth to record his 14th save.
Andres Gimenez went 2-for-4 with an RBI and scored twice. He also had three of Toronto’s five stolen bases. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. added two hits and two RBIs.
Boston rookie Jake Bennett (1-3) made his fourth major league start and took the loss. Bennett allowed two runs on three hits in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out five and didn’t issue any walks.
Wilyer Abreu collected two of Boston’s seven hits. The Red Sox stranded 13 runners and were 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position.
The Blue Jays took a 2-0 lead in the third. Davis Schneider doubled and put Toronto up 1-0 when he scored on a Gimenez single. Gimenez moved to second when George Springer was hit by a pitch, stole third and scored on Guerrero’s ground out to third.
Toronto added to its lead in the eighth. Gimenez singled, stole second, took third on Springer’s fly ball to right and scored on a Guerrero single to make it 3-0.
