Ranger Suarez isn’t thinking about the playoffs yet.
“I’m not thinking too much about the playoffs right now,” he said through an interpreter. “I just want to finish the season strong, healthy, and after that, after the [regular] season is over, we’ll focus on the playoffs.”
But with just 13 games remaining, and after another dominant outing, it’s hard not to think about October.
Suarez’s big-game pedigree is a big reason why the Red Sox gave him a five-year, $130 million contract back in January. In 11 postseason games (eight starts), the left-hander owns a 4-1 record with a 1.48 ERA, allowing just seven earned runs over 42.2 innings.
After an up-and-down second half, Suarez appears to be rounding into form at the right time.
In five starts in August, Suarez posted a 5.70 ERA, allowing 15 earned runs over 23.2 innings. It was his worst ERA in a month in which he made at least five starts since July 2023, when he posted a 6.11 ERA.
But September has been a different story.
In two starts this month, Suarez has posted a 0.64 ERA, allowing just one earned run over 14.0 innings. That included another dominant outing Saturday, when he went 7.0 innings, allowing five hits and one earned run while striking out eight. He retired 21 of the 26 batters he faced and has now gone at least seven innings in consecutive starts, following his seven-inning shutout performance in Baltimore last Friday night.
“I liked it. Second one in a row,” Interim manager Chad Tracy said. “Eight Ks, no walks. Attacked the zone. Used his off-speed very effectively. Got people out front. Got in on the hands. He was really, really good.”
It’s a pretty good time for the All-Star to be finding his form, with the Red Sox beginning to figure out what their rotation will look like in October.
“It’s important,” Tracy said of Suarez’s momentum. “Obviously, there was a run of a handful of starts there when he was having trouble getting deeper in the game, mostly driven by count leverage and being behind in the count. It drove the pitch count up. But to see him now, just looks like strike one all the time. Strike one, strike two. He’s obviously trending in a really good direction.”
Suarez will likely make two more starts before the Wild Card Series begins Tuesday, September 29, seemingly inevitably in New York against the Yankees. After the way he has pitched over the last two starts, Suarez is looking like the pitcher the Red Sox can trust with the ball in one of their best-of-three AL Wild Card games.
