HOUSTON — Dylan Cease worked quickly on Opening Day and Lance Lynn did on day 2.
Not that the pitch clock sped things up for Lynn, who was a fairly quick worker before baseball’s new speed-up rules.
“I don’t feel like I’m slow anyways,” Lynn said recently.
In the Sox’ 6-3 loss Friday to the Astros, Lynn was one pitch away from getting through six swift innings of scoreless, one-hit ball. But former Sox Jose Abreu lined a single in front of center fielder Luis Robert, and Kyle Tucker homered to center, cutting the Sox advantage to 3-2.
Lynn left with a lead against a team that pinned a 9.18 ERA on him over his previous six starts, but the Astros took it away on a three-run double by slugger Yordan Alvarez against lefty Jake Diekman, putting Houston in front 5-3. Kendall Graveman, pitching for the second straight night, set things up for Alvarez when he sandwiched walks around a parachute single by Jeremy Pena that Gold Glove left fielder Andrew Benintendi didn’t seem to get a good read on.
With the bases loaded, manager Pedro Grifol went to Diekman, who grooved a belt-high sinker to Alvarez, and the left-handed masher banged one beyond Benintendi’s reach near the wall, making him 4-for-8 in his career against the Sox lefty.
David Hensley’s RBI single against Jose Ruiz in the eighth gave the Astros a 6-3 lead.
Lynn was given a 3-0 lead to work with on Eloy Jimenez’ RBI double in the first against Cristian Javier, and doubles on consecutive pitches in the sixth by Benintendi, Jimenez and Yoan Moncada, the latter delivering a knockout blow to the Astros starter.
Cease, who led the major leagues in walks allowed in 2022 when his strikeout stuff was so good it negated much of the damage of the free passes, did not walk a batter in his season debut Thursday. He struck out 10, tying Jack McDowell’s Opening Day club record set in 1991.
Lynn walked four but kept the Astros, who received their World Series rings before the game, in check through the first five innings, positioning the Sox for a 2-0 start to the season against a team starting the season without Jose Altuve and Michael Brantley.
To what degree working fast is helping Sox pitchers stay in better rhythm is not totally known, but so far so good for Cease and Lynn.
Lucas Giolito, who will start in the third game of the series Saturday, liked that the clock made him work faster. It felt like his favorable outcomes during spring training were due in part to getting in a good rhythm.
“Less time to think; get the ball and go,” Giolito said. “Hear the sign, agree to it and you don’t have much time. Fire that thing and do it over again till you’re out of the inning.”
Cease had one game with no walks last season, a seven-inning, one-hit outing with 11 strikeouts against the Angels on May 2. He became the fourth pitcher in AL history with no walks and 10-plus strikeouts on Opening Day, joining Hall-of-Famers Walter Johnson (1916) and Mike Mussina (1998) and Jered Weaver (2012).
“To go toe-to-toe with them and put that much pressure on them and then to ultimately walk out with the win, we couldn’t ask for a better start to a season,” Cease said Thursday.
A win Friday guaranteeing a season opening-split would have been sweeter for the Sox.
But that got flushed by the bullpen.