It was a weird Monday night in Toronto, but Tanner Houck was practically perfect in the 4-1 Red Sox win.

Through 4 ⅔ innings, Houck kept the Blue Jays off the bases, and did so in meticulous fashion. Even after a two-out walk and hit spoiled the bids for perfection and hitless-ness, when Houck walked off the mound having stranded both baserunners to complete five shutout innings, his pitch count sat at 57 (36 strikes).

“Really efficient,” manager Alex Cora told reporters.

“Super efficient,” Houck concurred.

He faced 17 batters in his 30th start of the season. He didn’t strike out any of them, inducing them to weak contact instead for a 10-5 groundout-flyout ratio.

“It’s very hard to do,” Cora said of his starter’s five strikeout-less shutout innings.

In doing so, the homegrown right-hander lowered his ERA to 3.12, the best mark by a Red Sox pitcher over at least 30 starts since Chris Sale posted a 2.90 in his inaugural season in Boston in 2017.

“I think as a starter that’s kind of like, what you strive for,” Houck said. “30-plus starts, 200-plus innings are kind of those milestones that I think everyone shoots for. To get to 30 is one under my belt. I don’t think I’ve ever done it, even in the minor leagues, so huge step forward.

“It’s been a lot of fun. I feel like I’ve grown a lot as an individual, on and off the baseball field this year.”

Houck’s performance was on the shorter end, as the Red Sox continue to manage his workload, but impressive. It was also one of many oddities in a series opener that saw the Blue Jays strike out just once and out-hit their guests 6-5.

Chris Bassitt took imperfection to a new level, walking a new career-high seven batters. He exited after 4 ⅓ innings, charged with three runs (two earned) on four hits, the aforementioned abundance of free passes, and one balk. He threw 88 pitches, 46 for strikes.

Collectively, the Blue Jays pitching staff issued 10 walks, the first double-digit walk game for the Red Sox since June 26, 2022, and only their second such game in the last five years.

“We needed to be relentless in the strike zone and we were,” Cora said. “The guys did an amazing job working counts, taking their walks. … Put some pressure on them. We hustled out of the box, and that’s the reason we won the game.”

From the jump, Bassitt looked off his game and agitated. The veteran starter issued three walks to his first five batters: back-to-back one-out walks to Trevor Story and Triston Casas in the first, and a leadoff walk to Wilyer Abreu in the second.

The Red Sox took a 3-0 lead, scoring a run apiece between the second and fourth innings, but also wasted several early opportunities to put the game comfortably out of reach. Jarren Duran’s two hits were his 47th double and 14th triple of the season, making him the first Major Leaguer to reach both totals in the same season since Hall of Famer Stan Musial in 1946, but he was never brought home to score.

Three of their four runs came via productive outs: Vaughn Grissom’s sacrifice fly plated the first run in the second, and Ceddanne Rafaela’s fourth-inning ground-out and eighth-inning force out yielded a run apiece. Abreu’s 33rd double of the season, which drove the team’s second run, was the only exception.

All told, Boston went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position and eight men left on base. They also got into trouble on the base paths: Duran and Trevor Story were each picked off second, and Rafaela was caught stealing.

So when Greg Weissert gave up back-to-back singles to begin the bottom of the sixth, there was a brief moment of panic. The rookie right-hander quickly corrected the situation, getting Nathan Lukes to ground into a double play and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to ground out.

Fellow rookies Zach Penrod and Luis Guerrero breezed through the seventh and eighth innings. They’ve yet to allow an earned run in their young Major League careers.

In the bottom of the ninth, however, the Blue Jays finally showed some fight. Facing Chris Martin, one of Cora’s two closer options now that Kenley Jansen is on the injured list to end the season, Toronto finally got a run on the board. Spencer Horwitz’s one-out RBI single plated the home team’s first and only run before Alejandro Kirk ground into a game-ending double play.

With that, the Red Sox are a winning team once more, and retake sole possession of third in the American League East. Now 79-78, they’ve officially surpassed their win totals from the last two seasons (both 78-84). Hearing that, Cora jokingly said, “Woo!”

Monday’s win also ensured that the Red Sox won’t finish last in their division for the third year in a row.

It’s not the division crown or even a Wild Card – though they’re still technically in that race, 3.5 games out of the third spot – but it’s not nothing.

And if they can win three of their remaining five games, they’ll finish the season as a winning team.