Rick Porcello has been waiting for an outing like this one for quite some time.
So it had to feel pretty good walking off the mound in the seventh inning with the opposing team still showing a zero in the run column.
Just once this season had Porcello not allowed a run in an outing: May 5 against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Needless to say, a lot has happened since - most of it not good, either.
And it all seemed to come to a head when on July 29 Porcello couldn't get out of the third inning in a start against the White Sox at Fenway Park. He was hit around for five earned runs on 10 hits and left the game with a 5.81 ERA on the season. Days later, he'd hit the DL. Triceps soreness, they said.
Just how sore it was, we won't know. But we do know this: Porcello needed to step off the mound for a bit. He needed to get right, whether it was his triceps or his mind.
Porcello wasn't really "shut down" due to the injury. He basically took part in his normal throwing program, and John Farrell at the time said he probably could have pitched a handful of days after his scheduled start.
But Porcello instead hit the DL. He'd stay with the team throughout, save for two rehab starts in High-A Lowell and Triple-A Pawtucket.
If it was up to Porcello, he would have pitched in Steven Wright's place when the knuckleballer went down with concussion symptoms. But that wasn't the original plan.
The Sox stuck to it, and so did Porcello. And the results were worth it on Wednesday, almost a month later, as he went toe-to-toe with White Sox ace Chris Sale and came out with a much-deserved win after tossing 7.0 innings of five-hit ball.
"Great outing, great outing, and I know he's really excited about it," Torey Lovullo told reporters. "The look on his face after the outing, very encouraging. Was staying in his delivery, the ball was coming out of his hand real good. Good two-seam action on his fastball. Anytime he went to his four-seam he seemed to spot it up. Got some swing and misses and some easy outs with his changeup. It just was all working for him. We're really happy for him."
Porcello struck out five and didn't walk a batter. He threw 94 pitches, 67 for strikes, and threw first-pitch strikes to 20 of the 26 batters he faced. When Travis Shaw hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning to give the Sox a 2-0 lead, Porcello was in line for the win.
"He was always preparing himself for this moment," Lovullo said, "he was working hard behind the scenes whether it was with the pitching coaches or on his rehab starts. But today it was his fastball command for me that was a separator. It was a down two-seam fastball tying up some right-handed hitters and I think the four-seam fastball also came into play."
When it's all said and done at the end of the season, this will have been a rough one for Porcello. The Sox had much higher expectations after signing him to a four-year, $82.5 million contract extension. You wouldn't say a 6-11 record with a 5.47 ERA is living up to that expectation.
But there's still time for Porcello to at least finish the season strong and go into the offseason on a high note.
What happens after that is anybody's guess.