Red Sox battle back from early deficits, win opener against Giants as Rafael Devers goes hitless

Boston Globe

4 hours ago

Rafaela's double in the third was the Red Sox' first hit of the night. His two-out single in the fourth plated the tying run. And his homer in the sixth gave the team what wound up a permanent lead.
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In his first 52 games this season, Rafaela had a lone three-hit game as he hit .221. In the 20 games since, he has three and a .338 average.
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In his first game against the Red Sox, just five days after their stunning trade of him, Devers mustered a harmless 0-for-5.
It wasn't for a lack of trying. In the seventh inning, as he represented the potential tying run against lefty reliever Justin Wilson, Devers endeavored to take several mighty hacks but never made solid contact. He flied out to Rafaela in medium-depth center.
Devers also struck out against Aroldis Chapman — on a 101.8-m.p.h. fastball — for the penultimate out in the ninth.
San Francisco's last, best chance came in the eighth, when it had two on with one out. Righthander Garrett Whitlock struck out Patrick Bailey for the second out, walked Dominic Smith to load the bases, and won a seven-pitch showdown with Mike Yastrzemski, who whiffed on a slider for strike three — Whitlock's 34th pitch of the inning.
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Red Sox righthander Hunter Dobbins (four-plus innings, five runs, four earned) and Giants righthander Hayden Birdsong (4⅓ innings, five runs, four earned) traded mediocre blows for the first or so of the game, which included six tying or go-ahead plays.
Dobbins's outing was weird. He walked five batters, including the leadoff man in the first and second innings, and three of those batters scored. Twice, he allowed San Francisco to load the bases with no outs, but both times he induced a run-scoring double-play grounder from No. 9 hitter Christian Koss — a former Sox minor leaguer. Of the four hits off Dobbins, only one went cleanly to the outfield.
That came from Heliot Ramos, who lined a leadoff single to right to open the bottom of the fifth. Manager Alex Cora pulled Dobbins — who had faced 20 batters, his approximate limit lately — instead of letting him face Devers for a third time.
Birdsong, conversely, looked dominant early — six up, six down on 19 pitches — before falling apart. David Hamilton burned him for a two-run home run in the third, and Rafaela added a tying single in the fourth.
Roman Anthony contributed an RBI single — the first single of his career — scorched 112 miles per hour to center field in the fifth.
The Giants plated their first run on Hamilton's two-out error in the first inning. Wilmer Flores sent a soft line drive in his direction and it deflected off Hamilton's glove, allowing Flores to reach and Yastrzemski to score.
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In the second inning, Yastrzemski's single — a hard ground ball off Dobbins's glove on a behind-the-back fielding attempt — was the Giants' first hit, but brought in their third run.
Tim Healey can be reached at