Gausman, 34, was able to generate a solid 14 swings-and-misses over his 96 pitches, but he dealt with command issues; walking three with 34 of those offerings landing outside the strike zone. The right-hander gave up up all four runs in the fifth, and outside of that it was a solid effort from Gausman. One bad inning can turn a strong outing into a shaky one, and Monday was evidence of that. He’ll take a 3.16 ERA into a scheduled start Sunday against the Yankees.

The 34-year-old hurler allowed six hits on the evening and didn’t walk a batter. All of the damage done against him came via the long ball, with Austin Riley crushing a solo homer in the opening frame and Matt Olson adding a solo shot in the sixth. Gausman generated 14 swings and misses on 98 pitches on the night — eight of them on his fastball — while registering a CSW of 31 percent. He’ll attempt to keep the good times rolling as he brings a stellar 2.52 ERA, 0.72 WHIP and a 20/3 K/BB ratio (25 1/3 innings) into a tough matchup against the Astros in Houston on Monday.

After two ho-hum starts to begin the season, Gausman was great on Wednesday, striking out 10 batters and walking none. The Red Sox had just two extra base hits all day and couldn’t hit much of anything hard. However, we do have to pour a little bit of cold water on this. Gausman’s splitter still had just four whiffs on 19 swings and had just a 39 percent zone rate. Almost all of Gausman’s damage came on his four-seam fastball, which had 13 whiffs on 34 swings and also a 40 percent CSW. Yet, Gausman’s fastball was also down two mph and averaged just 92.8 mph on the night. A lot of this feels like it can be attributed to an incredibly cold weather game in Boston on Wednesday. We would still be cautious in rolling out Gausman next week against the Braves.

Gausman allowed just two hits. Unfortunately, one was a two-run homer from Pete Alonso, who managed to drill a low-and-away fastball out to right. Gausman, whose velocity fluctuates more than that of most starters, was down some today, averaging 94 mph with his fastball, and he actually went without a strikeout for just the fifth time in his starting career. We wouldn’t read too much into it; Gausman isn’t at all likely to reemerge as a top-10 fantasy starter, but he should be solid enough to be useful in mixed leagues.