The Red Sox earned arguably their best win of the season on Saturday, rallying from five runs down to beat the Atlanta Braves 7-6 on a walk-off home run.
Now the club turns to Brayan Bello in hopes of building on that momentum.
Bello (2-0, 2.33) will face off against Braves starter Spencer Schwellenbach (2-3, 3.31) in the finale of this weekend’s three-game set. Bello has gotten off to a strong start to the season since coming off the injured list on April 22, allowing three or fewer runs in each of his first five starts, but he also hasn’t finished five innings in either of his two most recent outings.
With a win the Red Sox can get back to .500 heading into their upcoming series against the first-place New York Mets.
Kristian Campbell isn’t in the lineup and David Hamilton will instead start at second base. Abraham Toro will start at first base, Connor Wong will catch and the remainder of the lineup will largely be the same as usual.
First pitch is scheduled for 1:35 p.m.
Red Sox lineup
Jarren Duran LF
Rafael Devers DH
Alex Bregman 3B
Wilyer Abreu RF
Trevor Story SS
Abraham Toro 1B
Connor Wong C
David Hamilton 2B
Ceddanne Rafaela CF
Brayan Bello P
How to watch
When: 1:35 p.m.
Where: Fenway Park, Boston
Broadcast info: NESN, WEEI 93.7 FM, WCCM 1490 AM (Spanish), WESX 1230 AM (Spanish)
Taking their biggest test of the season in this weekend’s road series with the Kansas City Royals, the Red Sox passed with flying colors.
The Royals came into Saturday on a seven-game winning streak, with only two losses in their previous 18 games, and without back-to-back losses since April 19, but it was the Red Sox who took the series, two games to one. After losing the opener 2-1 in the 12th inning, Boston rebounded with a 10-1 victory on Saturday and 3-1 clincher on Sunday.
A pair of top-four ‘24 AL Cy Young finalists, Cole Ragans (fourth) and Seth Lugo (second), started for the Royals in the second and third games, but they were out-pitched by three newcomers to Boston’s rotation. Rookie Hunter Dobbins, ace southpaw Garrett Crochet, and the recently-returned Lucas Giolito combined for 19.2 innings – at least six apiece – and just one earned run.
“The pitching staff as a whole, they were amazing,” lauded manager Alex Cora.
With the exception of his former home field on Chicago’s South Side, Giolito has spent more time on the Kauffman Stadium mound than any other ballpark. The Red Sox right-hander entered Sunday’s series finale with a 2.97 ERA over 13 career starts (78.2 innings) in Kansas City, making it the perfect place for him to rebound from his last start, a 3.2-inning struggle he’d described as a “step back.”
Indeed, in his longest start since Sept. 15, 2023, Giolito held the Royals to one unearned run on two hits, one walk, and struck out five over 6.2 innings. His velocity topped out at 96.1 mph, and he induced 10 swings-and-misses among his 88 pitches (59 for strikes).
“Better mix, better command, fastball was a little bit harder, 93, 94 mph, but I think it was the mix of the pitches,” Cora said of his starter. “The last two days we were banged up in the bullpen. What you saw is probably what we had, and both of them, Crochet and Gio, gave us more than enough.”
Aside from a long third inning, Giolito breezed through the afternoon. He opened with back-to-back 1-2-3 innings. When the Royals sent six men to the plate in the third, the Sox starter managed to limit the damage. Drew Waters led off with a single, Luke Maile followed with a walk, and Kyle Isbel’s sacrifice bunt gave the Royals a 1-0 lead when Giolito made a throwing error.
Undeterred, Giolito got the next three batters in order to strand runners on the corners. After the miscue, he retired seven batters before giving up a single to Maile and promptly erasing it by getting Isbel to ground into an inning-ending double play. All told, he set the Royals down 1-2-3 in five of his six full innings, and recorded the first two outs of the seventh before Justin Wilson got Mark Canha to line out on the first pitch to complete yet another orderly frame.
“We got to work, we made adjustments with the slider,” Giolito told reporters, making sure to credit his coaches and catcher Carlos Narváez, who’s quickly become integral to the pitching staff’s success. “Narvy was fantastic behind the plate again.”
After knocking Ragans around for five innings on Saturday, the Boston bats didn’t make it easy for Lugo, either. The ’24 Cy Young runner-up lasted six innings, but allowed three earned runs on six hits, including Wilyer Abreu’s game-tying solo home run, and Rafael Devers’ go-ahead two-run shot in the sixth.
One of two players without a knock in Saturday’s 15-hit Boston bonanza, Abreu was Boston’s most productive bat in Sunday’s series finale. He snapped an 0 for 13 skid with a leadoff single in the second, tied the game with his 10th home run in the fourth – a 430-footer, tying the second-furthest hits of his career – and made it a three-hit day with another leadoff single in the ninth.
Each of Abreu’s first two hits, as well as Trevor Story’s third-inning single, came with two strikes. The Red Sox entered the contest with 148 two-strike hits, tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers for most in the majors.
The biggest hit, however, belonged to Boston’s blaster. WIth Jarren Duran on first with a one-out single in the sixth, Devers demolished Lugo’s first pitch, a 91.8 mph four-seamer. Hurtling 440 feet to dead-center at 110.4 mph, it may have been the Red Sox’s furthest hit of the season, but it was still only tied for 19th in Devers’ career. (467 feet on June 25, 2024 vs. Blue Jays’ Kevin Gausman.)
“Just another day,” Cora said of Devers’ latest powerful performance. “He’s probably the best DH in the American League right now.”
Over the three-game series, Devers hit .583 with a 1.560 OPS, seven hits, six RBI, two walks, a double, and a home run. He has three multi-hit performances in his last four games.
Too often over the last few years, the Red Sox have struggled to dispatch bad teams. (Last year’s 2-2 series split with the 121-loss White Sox comes to mind.) This weekend, however, they more than held their own against what could very well be a postseason opponent.
It’s exactly the kind of confidence-building weekend the Red Sox need as they head to Detroit for their next big test: three games against the white-hot Tigers, with reigning Cy Young, Tarik Skubal on the mound Wednesday.
Ever since Triston Casas went down with a season-ending knee injury, speculation has run rampant that Rafael Devers could fill the void at first base. Yet while the move makes some sense on paper, Devers has publicly expressed his opposition to the idea and manager Alex Cora has insisted the club will stick with Romy Gonzalez and Abraham Toro for now.
Maybe things will change and Devers will eventually prove to be the solution, but suppose we take Cora at his word and the slugger remains at DH. What other options could the Red Sox have?
It’s a trickier question than it might seem at first glance.
So let’s run down the list of possibilities, starting with the home run swings that are definitely not going to happen down to the realistic options who actually could help the Red Sox out, plus everyone in between.
Mets slugger Pete Alonso is the best possible first baseman the Red Sox could acquire to fill the void left by Triston Casas. Fans probably shouldn’t count on seeing him in Boston. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Don’t hold your breath
The biggest home run for the Red Sox would be acquiring Pete Alonso. The New York Mets slugger has been among the best hitters in baseball, and as of this writing he’s batting .324 with nine home runs, 34 RBI and a 1.069 OPS. He’s also expected to hit free agency again this winter, so you could probably talk yourself into him maybe not being as costly to obtain as a pure rental than some others with multiple years of team control.
Alright, let’s wake up and come back to the real world.
There is no chance New York trades Alonso. The Mets have one of the best records in baseball and have World Series aspirations. Why would they trade their best hitter, even if the potential return was something outrageous like Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and others? The Mets didn’t just sign Juan Soto to the largest deal in baseball history to try and kick the can down the road.
We can similarly rule out Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who just inked a 14-year, $500 million contract to stay with the Toronto Blue Jays, along with guys like Freddie Freeman, Bryce Harper, Matt Olson and Christian Walker. Cross them off the list, it ain’t going to happen.
Paul Goldschmidt would be a perfect fit for Boston as a fill-in first baseman, but would the Yankees swing a deal with their biggest rival? Likely not. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Maybe, but probably not
These guys aren’t as untouchable as the stars in the above category, but because they play prominent roles on playoff contenders or because they’re with division rivals, they probably won’t be options for Boston either.
Let’s start within the division. Paul Goldschmidt is 37 and on a one-year deal, but he’s been hitting the ball well and the Yankees are in first place. Not going to happen. Ryan Mountcastle has been OK and the Orioles have been disappointing, but Baltimore still aspires to contend and isn’t going to sell to an AL East rival.
How about across the American League? The Tigers have two solid first basemen in Spencer Torkelson and Colt Keith, but they also have the best record in the AL. The Royals are back in the AL Central hunt and likely won’t part ways with Vinnie Pasquantino, and the Twins probably aren’t in a position to move Ty France. The Athletics are in an interesting spot with Tyler Soderstrom and top prospect Nick Kurtz at first, but they also came into the weekend with a winning record and little incentive to move either promising young player.
Others in the National League who likely fall into this category include Michael Busch with the Cubs, Rhys Hoskins with the Brewers, Josh Naylor with the Diamondbacks and Luis Arraez with the Padres.
Jake Burger has massively underperformed since joining the Texas Rangers this past offseason. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Thanks but no thanks
If the Red Sox wanted to swing an emergency trade this far out from the deadline, their most willing partners would probably be teams who are at the bottom of the standings. The problem is most of those teams don’t have first basemen who would meaningfully move the needle in Boston.
The White Sox have primarily started Andrew Vaughn, whose -1.2 wins above replacement ranks among the worst in MLB. The Rockies start Michael Toglia, who has also been sub-replacement level. The Pirates start Enmanuel Valdez at first, who the Red Sox just traded away this past winter for a Single-A pitching prospect. The Angels rely on Nolan Schanuel, who isn’t as good as Gonzalez, and the Marlins have gone with both Eric Wagaman and Matt Mervis, neither of whom have been productive.
Two others the Red Sox should steer clear of are Jake Burger and Josh Bell. Burger joined the Rangers this past winter in a trade and was supposed to provide an additional power bat in the heart of the order, but after hitting 63 home runs in the last two seasons he struggled massively out of the gate and was recently demoted to Triple-A. Bell has similarly struggled in his second stint with the Nationals, and is now on track to post his third consecutive season with a negative WAR.
Maybe you could justify Burger as a reclamation project, but considering how often he strikes out and how little he walks, that would be a risky proposition if he can’t get the barrel on the ball.
The St. Louis Cardinals are looking to begin a rebuild and Willson Contreras is one of their highest-paid players. Would the Red Sox consider trying to bring him aboard? (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Reds or Redbirds?
There are two clubs that stand out as obvious trade partners for the Red Sox, the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals. Both clubs boast multiple first basemen, including some who would represent meaningful upgrades for Boston, and both clubs are not expected to contend in a loaded National League.
The Reds have been using three players at first base, Spencer Steer, Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Jeimer Candelario. Steer has seen the most time of the three and has enjoyed a productive start to his career, finishing sixth in the Rookie of the Year vote in 2023 before posting a 20-20 season last year. But he’s gotten off to a tough start in 2025, batting .189 with a .550 OPS.
Encarnacion-Strand has battled injuries throughout his career and is currently on the IL with a lower back injury, and Candelario has been a massive disappointment since signing a three-year, $45 million deal prior to 2024.
The Red Sox shouldn’t consider Candelario, but Steer and Encarnacion-Strand each might represent decent buy-low opportunities, particularly once the latter returns from injury.
As for the Cardinals, they have Willson Contreras and Alec Burleson at first base but have made no secret their desire to begin a long-term rebuild. Contreras is in the third year of his five-year, $87.5 million deal and has been an above-average offensive producer throughout his career. The Cardinals would probably be interested in moving his contract, and while the Red Sox surely wouldn’t be interested in that money, maybe this is a case where they could swap Contreras for Masataka Yoshida (and his similar contract), with the Red Sox likely tossing a prospect in to get the deal over the finish line.
Or, they could just acquire Burleson, who hit 21 home runs last season and probably won’t be part of St. Louis’ long-term plans.
Washington’s Nathaniel Lowe is probably among the best attainable first baseman the Red Sox could potentially pursue. (AP Photo/Daniel Kucin Jr.)
Intriguing and attainable
So who are actually the best fits that the Red Sox could realistically acquire?
I would argue Boston’s first call should be to Cleveland about Carlos Santana. The 39-year-old is still producing at a respectable level, walks a ton and is on an expiring contract. The Guardians also have Kyle Manzardo splitting time between first and DH, along with a top-100 first base prospect in C.J. Kayfus. He’d be a perfect fit.
If not Santana, another good option would be Nathaniel Lowe. The 29-year-old has gotten off to a strong start, batting .255 with six home runs and a .772 OPS, and would fill Casas’ void as a left-handed hitter. He also has two years of team control remaining, and given that Washington looks consigned to another fourth-place finish, they surely wouldn’t mind picking up a prospect for a guy who’ll likely leave in free agency after 2026 anyway.
How about Rowdy Tellez? The legendary Red Sox killer has shown time and time again how much he likes playing at Fenway Park. It might be hard for Seattle to justify given how bad Donovan Solano has been, but Tellez isn’t exactly a foundational piece.
Tampa Bay has a couple of interesting options. Jonathan Aranda has been terrific and Yandy Diaz has an established track record even though he’s primarily played DH. The Rays are a division rival, which makes a deal less likely, but Tampa Bay also has 24-year-old Curtis Mead and two top-100 first base prospects coming up. Perhaps that could help the Red Sox pry one of Aranda or Diaz away?
Others who might be worth a look include Milwaukee’s Jake Bauers, who has bounced around a bunch but who is posting some of the best offensive numbers of his career so far while backing up Rhys Hoskins. San Francisco’s LaMonte Wade Jr. has gotten off to a terrible start, but he’s posted quality numbers the last two seasons and the Giants have a top first base prospect nearing the majors in Bryce Eldridge.
What about Mark Canha? The 36-year-old hasn’t gotten many at bats with Kansas City, but he’s made the most of the opportunities he’s had. The Red Sox could also seek a reunion with Justin Turner. We already know how well respected he is in the Red Sox clubhouse, though his production and playing time with the Cubs have really fallen off at age 40.
It will be interesting to see who the Red Sox eventually bring in, but no matter what path the club chooses, standing pat shouldn’t be an option.
Rafael Devers moving from third base to designated hitter was the story of spring training. The slugger made no attempt to hide his unhappiness and at one point even said he wouldn’t be willing to do it, but eventually the change was made and after a historically bad first week he settled into a rhythm.
Then Triston Casas went down, and now we’re right back at square one.
Ever since Casas’ injury there’s been rampant speculation that Devers could be a solution to fill the void at first base, speculation that manager Alex Cora has tried desperately to tamp down, dismissing the idea out of hand and insisting the club plans to stick with Romy Gonzalez and Abraham Toro for now. But on Thursday Devers blew the lid off the controversy, saying not only that chief baseball officer Craig Breslow had asked about playing first, but that he didn’t want to and was upset the team had asked.
“I don’t think, me personally, it’s the best decision after they asked me to play a different position and I don’t even have two months playing this position to all of a sudden have me play another position,” Devers said via interpreter Daveson Perez. “From my end it doesn’t seem like a good decision.”
“I know I’m a ballplayer, but at the same time they can’t expect me to play every single position out there,” he continued later. “In spring training they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove, that I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH, so right now I feel it’s not an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position.”
Man, where to begin.
This whole thing is a bad look for everyone involved. The Red Sox look shortsighted for not having enough first base depth within the organization, and clearly the communication between club officials and Devers hasn’t been adequate. Meanwhile, Devers comes off looking selfish, like someone who isn’t willing to do what’s best for the team.
Unsurprisingly, the response from fans has been evenly divided, with heaps of criticism coming from all directions.
Clearly the Red Sox misread things here, but with Devers the situation is a little more complicated.
Devers isn’t wrong to be upset about the way he’s been handled over the past few months. It’s also not fair to say he isn’t a team player. Last year he played 138 games despite battling through a series of shoulder injuries throughout the season. He continued to play long past the point where a trip to the IL would have been appropriate, and by the end of the year his production had cratered and he was essentially a shell of his usual self.
He deserves praise for that level of commitment, even if it was arguably to his own detriment.
But Devers has also never shown any interest in taking the next step in his career as a leader, in going above and beyond and doing more than just producing on the field. Since signing his 10-year, $313.5 million contract — the largest in team history — he has consistently deferred to others in the clubhouse when it comes to speaking for the team. That responsibility has instead fallen to other veterans like Justin Turner, Rob Refsnyder and now Alex Bregman.
The position dustups have also exposed Devers’ first instinct to be inwardly focused. He’s viewed these requests as disrespectful, when he could have seen them as opportunities.
That approach stands in stark contrast to one of Devers’ former teammates.
Mookie Betts was a six-time Gold Glove winner in right field, but when the Dodgers needed him to steady their middle infield in 2023, he shifted back to second base and eventually to shortstop, a position with which he had no previous MLB experience. Fast forward two years and he’s played every game this season at shortstop, helping shore up that position and helping keep the Dodgers among MLB’s elite.
That willingness to move around prompted this quote from Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes at the General Managers Meetings this past offseason.
“For Mookie, winning is always No. 1,” Gomes said, per MLB.com’s Sonja Chen. “So I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s like, ‘Hey, this is the best thing. I’ll play wherever.’ I think catching is probably out of the realm of possibility, although I’m sure he would be good at that as well.
“But yeah, I think it’s a lot of conversations with him as well. I know the toll on the body is less in the infield for him. So you can make arguments on both sides of it. But the beauty of Mookie is (he’s) the most selfless superstar we’ve ever been around. And that permeates through the team.”
Could you imagine a similar thing being said by a team executive about Devers right now?
Even if the Dodgers likely communicated better with Betts than the Red Sox have with Devers, if the slugger shared Betts’ mindset there probably wouldn’t have been any controversy to begin with. Plus, it’s also possible the Red Sox might have been reticent to broach the subject because they knew it wouldn’t go over well.
The Red Sox certainly aren’t blameless here, and Devers has frankly been put in a tough spot. Had the roster been better constructed or if there weren’t so many positional logjams, the Red Sox could have avoided all of the Devers drama and maybe also found a way to get Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer to the big leagues by now, too.
But the best leaders rise above the fray, and to this point Devers hasn’t reached a point where his first instinct when confronted by a challenge like this is to lift his team up. And until that day comes, it’s hard to imagine him reaching his full potential as a player and a leader.
Last summer the Red Sox made pitching a top priority in the draft, selecting 14 arms over the course of 20 rounds to help replenish a farm system that for years lacked high-end arms.
Less than a year later, two of the top players from that class are already beginning to turn heads.
Payton Tolle and Brandon Clarke, both hard throwers who were among Boston’s top five selections in last year’s draft, have gotten off to fantastic starts in their professional careers. Both pitchers have made impressive velocity gains to push their fastballs into the high 90s, and Wednesday the two broke into Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospect rankings, giving the Red Sox six players on the list.
Tolle, Boston’s second-round pick and the highest remaining player in the class after first-rounder Braden Montgomery was traded in the Garrett Crochet deal, checked in at No. 94. Clarke, a left-hander taken in the fifth round, broke into the rankings at No. 96.
They join Roman Anthony (1), Kristian Campbell (3), Marcelo Mayer (9) and Franklin Arias (68), though Campbell needs only a handful more at-bats to graduate from prospect status.
Tolle came in as the more heralded name. A 6-foot-6 right-hander out of TCU, Tolle is a mountain of a man who in addition to boasting high velo can also release the ball so close to home plate that hitters have even less time to react than usual.
Red Sox assistant general manager Paul Toboni said they already liked his physicality and the shape of his pitches when they drafted him, and now his fastball is up to 98 mph. The results have been on full display in High-A Greenville, where on Sunday Tolle struck out 12 batters over five scoreless innings in his best start as a pro to date.
“He’s obviously got huge extension, his fastball plays, and with that added velocity his off-speed stuff is picking up too,” Toboni said.
But while Tolle was a hot commodity out of the draft, Clarke was practically an unknown, at least outside of the Red Sox organization. The 21-year-old last played at State College of Florida, a junior college in Bradenton, and wasn’t even ranked among Boston’s top 30 prospects entering the spring.
Then he stepped on the mound during March’s Spring Breakout game and immediately put the sport on notice.
Red Sox pitching prospect Brandon Clarke, center, sits with fellow prospects Yordanny Monegro and Juan Valera before the 2025 Spring Breakout game against the Tampa Bay Rays in Port Charlotte, Florida. (Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)
Facing a Tampa Bay Rays lineup that featured some of the top prospects in the sport, Clarke began unleashing a 99 mph fastball and an unexpectedly expansive pitch arsenal. For many in attendance it was a real “who is this guy?” moment.
Clarke has been outstanding ever since. Last month he was promoted to High-A Greenville after only three starts at Low-A Salem, and through his first four career starts the lefty has struck out 24 batters over 14.1 innings while posting a 0.63 ERA.
“You see him in spring training and you see what his body looks like and his athleticism and the fact that he’s up to 100 from the left side, it’s like, ‘why did you idiots wait until the fifth round’ or whatever it was we took him?” Toboni said. “His path hasn’t been linear, but we were taking a bet on the person that he would realize whatever potential he has, and so far I think he’s really on the right track.”
“He added velo, he added new pitches, and at the end of the day he’s throwing strikes and challenging guys in the strike zone and getting swings and misses in the strike zone,” said Brian Abraham, Boston’s senior director of player development. “That’s all you can ask for.”
Other young arms have also made a strong early impression. Luis Perales just missed Baseball America’s list despite the fact that he won’t pitch in 2025 after undergoing Tommy John surgery last year, and others like Connelly Early and Juan Valera, an 18-year-old who is already hitting 100 mph on the radar gun, may soon find themselves in top-100 prospect consideration as well.
But if the goal of last year’s draft was to jumpstart Boston’s pitching pipeline, the early returns so far have been nothing short of outstanding.
Teenage slugger earns big promotion
After his first season as a professional last year in the Dominican Republic, 18-year-old outfielder Justin Gonzales has earned a huge vote of confidence from the Red Sox, who assigned the teenager to Low-A Salem this past weekend after only one game in the Florida Complex League.
“In many ways it’s unprecedented for us,” Toboni said. “Usually we have our prospects, especially our international prospects at this age get extended run in Florida, but we thought he was a little bit of a different case.”
Gonzales, Boston’s Latin Program Player of the Year for 2024, is a hulking figure at 6-foot-4 who likely weighs considerably more at this point than his listed 210 pounds. Gonzales boasts incredible power and has already demonstrated the ability to generate eye-popping exit velocities, and in March he drew attention when he cleared JetBlue Park’s Green Monster replica during the Futures at Fenway South prospect showcase.
Gonzales made his in-game debut stateside this past weekend in Florida after spending the first month of the season in extended spring training, which proved to be one final tune-up before his long-planned promotion to Salem.
“That one game he played in he was really good so we felt like it was time to move him,” Abraham joked. “No, I think everything we saw last year in the DR, his ability to handle the strike zone, swing decisions, his impacting the baseball and the consistency to be able to that, and even the defense was really solid, I think he carried that on to spring training this year.”
“He’s really advanced from a hitting standpoint,” Toboni said. “He’s already physically really in a great spot, he does a really good job of hitting the ball hard and making contact and making good swing decisions.”
Upon arriving in Salem, Gonzales immediately became one of the youngest players with any affiliated minor league club. He’ll face a challenging transition not only to the higher level of competition, but also to life in an unfamiliar environment as a teenager who hasn’t spent much time in the U.S. and doesn’t speak English well yet. Toboni said those factors were front of mind and were a key reason he spent an extra month in Fort Myers, but they feel Gonzales is up to the task.
“We do think he’s ready, we wouldn’t have made the move if we didn’t, and that excites us,” Toboni said. “It speaks to the maturity and the type of kid he is.”
