Winning a pitching duel with one of Major League Baseball’s best is the latest notch on Greater Victoria-raised Nick Pivetta’s baseball belt.
The Lambrick Park Secondary School grad and Victoria HarbourCats alum led his Boston Red Sox to a 1-0 win over two-time Cy Young Award-winner Jacob DeGrom and the New York Mets on April 28.
The victory pushed Pivetta’s season record to 3-0, lowered his earned-run average to 2.81 and made him 5-0 overall as a Red Sox starter. His spot in the pitching rotation is due to come up next on May 4 against the Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park in Boston.
Against the Mets, Pivetta threw five innings of one-hit ball, striking out seven and walking three batters. He was staked to a lead with an RBI double from battery mate Christian Vazquez in the second inning, and the slim margin held up, thanks to another lights-out performance from the first-place Red Sox’ bullpen.
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In Pivetta’s previous start against the Seattle Mariners on April 22, the 6’5″, 214-pound right-hander no-hit the M’s for 5.2 innings before giving up one hit and two runs in the sixth. Seattle wound up winning the game 7-3 in 10 innings, leaving Pivetta with a no decision.
While pitching for the HarbourCats in the summer of 2013, he was drafted out of New Mexico Junior College by the Washington Nationals in the fourth round (136th overall). He was traded to Philadelphia in 2015 and made his MLB debut in 2017 with the Phillies.
Philadelphia traded Pivetta, struggling at the time as a relief pitcher, to the Red Sox in a four-player mid-season deal in 2020. He won both his starts for his new team while posting a 1.80 earned run average.
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