Red Sox’ Sonny Gray, putting IL stint further behind him, shines in two-hitter

BOSTON — There’s been so much focus on the Red Sox’ anemic offense of late that the team’s mostly high-quality pitching has gone almost unnoticed.

After all, when a team loses low-scoring games like the Red Sox have of late, it’s easier to pay attention to what they failed to do (hit) rather than what they did (pitch).

On Wednesday night at Fenway, however, the Red Sox shone on both sides of the ball. And no one was more effective than starter Sonny Gray.

Making his second start since finishing up an IL stint, Gray limited the Philadelphia Phillies to a single run over six innings, leading to a 3-1 Red Sox victory.

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Gray fanned a season-high six and walked only one, and retired 17 of the 20 hitters he faced. The lone mistake came when Justin Crawford connected for a solo homer in the third.

“He was awesome, awesome,” gushed interim manager Chad Tracy. “Threw strikes, pounded the zone, looked a lot like the last one (in Detroit) and got an inning further while only throwing eight or nine more pitches than he did last time. So he was really, really good.”

“I felt better from pitch No. 1 today than I did in Detroit,” offered Gray, who improved to 4-1. “The start in Detroit, it had been a while. So I felt better from the first pitch than I did in my last start.”