If Travis Shaw takes exception to all the talk of Hanley Ramirez moving to first base, he went about it in the best way possible Wednesday night.
Though Shaw had no answer for White Sox ace Chris Sale - and really, nobody on the Red Sox did - he took advantage of the fact Sale was taken out of the game after seven scoreless innings.
With White Sox reliever Nate Jones on the mound, Shaw stepped to the plate with Xander Bogaerts on first base and blasted a two-run home run down the right field line to put the Sox ahead, where they'd remain. It was the seventh home run of Shaw's rookie season, and first away from Fenway Park.
A little small ball in the ninth inning added an insurance run, as Blake Swihart walked, advanced to second on a wild pitch, advanced to third on a ground out to shortstop, and scored on a Josh Rutledge sacrifice fly. That would be the extent of the scoring, as the Red Sox won. 3-0.
Porcello came off the disabled list on Wednesday and got the start against the same team that knocked him around before the DL stint.
This time, however, the results were much different.
Porcello pitched 7.0 innings of five-hit ball, striking out five and not walking a batter. He threw first-pitch strikes to 20 of 26 batters. Porcello retired the first 11 batters of the game before allowing a ground-rule double to Melky Cabrera in the fourth inning.
He got into a bit of a jam in the 5th inning, allowing a leadoff double to Adam LaRoche and an infield single to Carlos Sanchez, but with one out got Tyler Flowers to fly out to right and Tyler Saladino to ground out to second base.
Again in the 6th, Porcello had to dig deep after putting men on first and second and then throwing a wild pitch that would advance them both. Porcello got LaRoche to fly out to center and end the inning.
Robbie Ross Jr. came on to pitch a perfect eight inning and Junichi Tazawa recovered from his disastrous outing on Sunday, pitching a scoreless ninth inning for the save.