Red Sox rally but can't overcome Angels' six-run first inning

Boston Globe

4 days ago

Angels leadoff hitter Zach Neto smashed a slider that bisected the plate at the top of the zone into the Monster Seats to commence the Angelic aggression. An eight-pitch walk to Nolan Schanuel, a single by Taylor Ward, and a run-scoring error on a groundball botched by third baseman Abraham Toro put the visitors ahead 2-0.
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After Fitts fell behind Mike Trout, 3-1, he opted for a four-seamer against the struggling star. The middle-middle location proved ill-advised, with Trout smashing it atop a platform behind the Monster Seats in left-center for a 454-foot, three-run homer that gave the Angels a 5-0 lead before they'd recorded a single out.
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Fitts finally got his first out of the frame on his 32nd pitch. However, his 33rd offering left a pothole on Landsdowne Street after Jo Adell blasted a four-seamer for a solo homer that made it 6-0.
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The three-homer yield was the first by a Red Sox pitcher in the first inning since Dana Kiecker got taken deep three times by the Tigers on May 26, 1991. It also marked the first time that a visiting team hit three homers in the first inning of a game at Fenway Park in the estimable venue's 114 seasons, according to star MLB researcher Sarah Langs.
With Fitts — making just his second start since returning from a pectoral strain — at 39 pitches after a single inning of work, manager Alex Cora elected to lift him in favor of long reliever Hunter Dobbins. Fitts became just the ninth Red Sox starter this century, and the first since Rick Porcello in 2019, to allow at least six runs in a start of no more than one inning.
The righthander's velocity was fine — he touched 98 m.p.h. — but his lack of swing-and-miss stuff left the Angels without fear of treading in the batter's box. Fitts elicited just two whiffs among his 39 offerings.
Though the start was disastrous, Dobbins quickly stabilized the contest for the Sox. He kept the Angels scoreless for the next four frames, buying time for the Red Sox offense to awaken against Angels lefthander Tyler Anderson.
The veteran — a right-lane driver who didn't throw a single pitch that cracked 90 mph — unbalanced the Sox through four innings in which he allowed just one run on back-to-back doubles by Jarren Duran and Rafael Devers in the third.
But in the fifth, the Sox erupted in their third look at Anderson. Duran, who snapped an 0-for-17 stretch with his prior two-bagger, kicked off the rally with a one-out double to left-center, and after a Devers walk, advanced to third on a wild pitch. Rob Refsnyder (RBI single) and Carlos Narváez (RBI double) followed with run-scoring hits to chase Anderson after 4⅓ innings, and Romy Gonzalez greeted reliever Hunter Strickland by cuing an opposite-field, two-run double down the right-field line to make it 6-5.
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The Angels regained a measure of separation in the top of the sixth, when Adell ambushed a first-pitch slider from Dobbins and launched it to left for his second homer of the game and a 7-5 lead. That was the only run allowed by the reliever in five bullpen-saving innings during which he struck out four and walked one.
Alex Speier can be reached at