Fresh off a badly needed series victory in Atlanta, the Red Sox came into Monday riding renewed momentum as they opened a crucial three-game homestand against the Los Angeles Angels.
The good vibes lasted all of about five pitches.
The Angels ambushed Richard Fitts for three home runs in a calamitous six-run first inning, chasing the Red Sox starter from the game after only three outs in what ended up being a 7-6 loss.
Even with the horrible start the Red Sox were still nearly able to come all the way back, twice drawing to within one run, but the club couldn’t get over the hump.
Coming off an abbreviated three-inning outing in his first start back off the injured list last week, the original plan was for Fitts to throw about 75-80 pitches as he worked his way back into form. But the Angels never gave him a chance, as Zach Neto set the tone with a 389-foot bomb to the Green Monster seats on the fifth pitch of the game.
It only went downhill from there.
Fitts walked Nolan Schanuel, allowed a single to Taylor Ward and then drew a grounder to third that Abraham Toro couldn’t field cleanly, allowing Schanuel to score and putting two men on with no outs. That brought up Mike Trout, and when Fitts threw the future Hall of Famer a fastball right down the middle, Trout sent it 454 feet into the deepest part of the Monster seats for a three-run homer.
Jo Adell delivered the exclamation mark two batters later with a solo shot to put the Angels up 6-0.
Fitts finished the inning but was lifted for the second after recording only three outs on 39 pitches. In doing so he became just the second starter in Red Sox history to allow six runs and three homers in one inning or fewer, joining Oil Can Boyd, who did so on May 23, 1988.
The outing also continued a concerning trend for the Red Sox, whose starters have not been able to consistently pitch deep into games. Boston’s starters have now failed to complete five innings in 22 of 62 games, more than a third of the team’s games played to this point.
As NESN’s Tom Caron noted on social media, the number is significantly worse when you remove Garrett Crochet and Walker Buehler from the equation. All other Red Sox starters besides those two have pitched five innings or more in just 20 of 40 games.
It’s the 22nd time (in 62 games) that a Red Sox starting pitcher doesn’t go 5 innings. Crochet and Buehler combined have failed to go 5 innings just twice in 22 starts. All other Sox starters combined have been unable to go 5 innings in half of their starts (20 of 40.)
That’s not a recipe for success, but Monday the Red Sox were at least able to fight back and make it a ballgame.
After Fitts came out, Hunter Dobbins took the ball and kept the Angels off the scoreboard for the next four innings. Rafael Devers got the Red Sox on the board with an RBI double in the third, and in the fifth Boston’s bats came to life with a four-run rally to cut the deficit to one.
Jarren Duran started things off with his second double of the game, and after Devers drew a walk Rob Refsnyder tagged Angels starter Tyler Anderson for an RBI single. Carlos Narvaez then followed with an RBI double to make it 6-3, chasing Anderson from the game after 4.1 innings.
Then, with reliever Hunter Strickland on the mound, Romy Gonzalez came through in his first game off the injured list with a two-run double down the right field line. That made it a 6-5 game, but after reaching third on Abraham Toro’s subsequent groundout, he was stranded 90 feet away from home by Trevor Story, who struck out to end the rally.
That was as close as the Red Sox got.
The Angels immediately answered back in the top of the sixth when Adell tagged Dobbins for his second home run of the game on the very first pitch of the inning. Boston also squandered a prime scoring opportunity in the bottom of the sixth, loading the bases against Angels lefty Reid Detmers before coming away empty handed.
The Red Sox were able to avoid a knockout punch in the seventh when Toro and Gonzalez combined to turn a spectacular double play to end the inning, cutting short what could have been a game-clinching rally with Trout at the plate. That kept it a two-run game into the eighth, when Ceddanne Rafaela led off with a solo home run to make it a 7-6 Angels lead.
But while Luis Guerrero was able to keep the Angels off the board in the ninth, the Red Sox were unable to complete the comeback against old friend Kenley Jansen, who closed out his former team to record his 12th save of the season and the 459th of his career.
Entering the season it looked like catcher was one of the Red Sox’s biggest areas of weakness. Connor Wong was the organization’s only established big league backstop, and with top prospect Kyle Teel gone as part of the Garrett Crochet blockbuster there didn’t seem to be much depth available behind him.
As luck would have it, the Red Sox wound up finding a diamond in the rough mere hours after dealing Teel away.
Carlos Narvaez was hardly Boston’s most heralded offseason acquisition, but the rookie catcher has been a revelation in his first full season as a big leaguer. Originally acquired from the New York Yankees in exchange for pitching prospect Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, Narvaez has been not only a legitimate MLB contributor, but arguably one of the most productive catchers in baseball through the season’s first two months.
Watching Narvaez play, you wouldn’t know that he came into the season with just six games of big league experience.
Entering Saturday, Narvaez was batting .291 with five home runs, 17 RBI and an .837 OPS, and since April 18 he’s batted .349 with all five of his homers and a 1.015 OPS over 24 games. His 1.9 Wins Above Replacement is tied for second in MLB among catchers who have played at least half of their games at the position, behind only Seattle standout Cal Raleigh.
Defensively Narvaez has been brilliant. His plus-eight defensive runs saved is tied with San Francisco’s Patrick Bailey for the best mark of any catcher in baseball and is tied for the fifth-best mark in MLB across all positions. Only Tampa Bay shortstop Taylor Walls (plus-12), Atlanta first baseman Matt Olson (plus-11), Red Sox teammate Ceddanne Rafaela (plus-10) and Chicago second baseman Nico Hoerner (plus-nine) have been better, according to Fangraphs.
“So far so good. He will struggle at one point, hopefully he doesn’t, but this is a league that makes adjustments,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “One thing that he does pretty well, he has a plan and he sticks to it. The other thing he has too is he can hit a line drive to right field whenever he feels like it. He can stay inside and take a single and when you have that you can survive when things are not going great.”
Though Narvaez’s offense has exceeded expectations, his abilities as a catcher haven’t caught any of his teammates by surprise. Narvaez has always been highly regarded for his defense and catching abilities dating back to his time in the Yankees minor league system, where he developed a reputation as the guy everyone enjoyed working with.
“He was the catching guy, he was the guy everyone wanted to throw to,” said right-hander Richard Fitts, who has known Narvaez since 2021 when they were both teammates with the Yankees’ High-A affiliate. “He was receiving really well, he had the mind of a big league catcher and he was picking it up with his bat then and getting going. We all loved throwing to him then and I was really happy when we picked him up this offseason.”
“He does all his homework, he’s confident back there, obviously his receiving numbers are great so half the time you’re like where’s that pitch? And you go back at the video and it’s two balls off but he makes it look so good,” said right-hander Greg Weissert, who also played with Narvaez in the Yankees system. “He’s stealing pitches for you and behind in the count or whatever it is, I think watching all the replays of the game makes you realize how many he’s getting.”
Upon joining the organization Narvaez made a point to get to know his new pitchers right away, reporting to Fort Myers well before he was required to jumpstart that process.
“You have to have that relationship and I think that work started in spring training,” Narvaez said. “Get closer to them, hang out with them, have dinner with them, build those relationships, that’s the most important thing for a catcher.”
Those efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. Several pitchers who hadn’t previously worked with Narvaez have complimented him throughout the season, and he’s also drawn high praise from Jason Varitek, the club’s game planning coordinator and one of the best catchers in club history.
“Carlos is what we envisioned,” Varitek told the Herald on April 19. “An elite defender, an elite receiver.”
“In a nutshell, Carlos is a baseball player,” he added, “and it’s a compliment (to him) and a compliment for this industry and Red Sox Nation. He’s a baseball player and he exudes baseball.”
For everything Narvaez has accomplished so far in his young career, the fact that he’s made the transition as a rookie to the majors so seamlessly shouldn’t be overlooked. Going from sparsely filled minor league facilities to Fenway Park can be overwhelming for some, but Narvaez — who comes from an accomplished baseball family — said he’s been uniquely well prepared for the bright lights.
“I think the Venezuelan Winter League helped me a lot,” Narvaez said, noting that his team played in the league’s championship series the last two seasons. “When you play those games it’s like 20,000 people. I’ve been playing in that environment for the last two years so I think that’s huge for me.”
Though Cora has insisted the catcher spot remains a two-person tandem, the balance of playing time has clearly shifted from Wong towards Narvaez. Entering Saturday’s doubleheader the rookie had started 11 of the club’s prior 12 games, and overall the Red Sox are 21-14 in games that Narvaez has started.
Narvaez was penciled into the cleanup spot for the first time in his career in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader as well.
Like fellow rookie Kristian Campbell — and most others — Narvaez will eventually encounter some adversity, but for now he’s been everything the Red Sox could have asked for and more.
“It’s fun to see because I’ve seen him be one of the best catchers and one of the guys everyone wants to throw to, and him being able to pick it up with his bat a little bit and show what he’s made of, it’s really fun,” Fitts said. “It’s like he’s beyond his years.”
It’s been a rough season for Jackson Holliday and the Baltimore Orioles so far. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
O’s paying for not seizing moment
This should have been the Baltimore Orioles’ year.
After a painful period of tanking and rebuilding, the Orioles assembled an exceptional collection of young talent and looked poised to contend for years to come. The group finally broke out in 2023 and has made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons, and last year the club was purchased by billionaire David Rubenstein, who seemingly had the resources to help elevate what had long been one of the most cash-strapped franchises in the sport to a financial heavyweight.
Orioles fans went into the offseason with every reason to expect some big swings. Instead the club sat on its hands, and now it’s reaping what it sowed.
The Orioles have been perhaps the most disappointing team in the league. Entering Saturday the Orioles were last in the AL East and 11 games back of the first-place Yankees, and their 16 wins were tied with the lowly White Sox for the fewest in the American League. Baltimore’s pitching staff has been a disaster, and even the club’s talented young core of position players has underperformed.
Baltimore has already fired Brandon Hyde, who won AL Manager of the Year just two years ago, and the club’s playoff odds entering Saturday sat at a dismal 1.6%.
How could this have happened?
Almost everything that could have gone wrong for the Orioles so far has, but Baltimore also had a golden opportunity to supercharge its already immensely talented roster and punted. Most glaring was the club’s failure to adequately address its starting rotation. The Orioles not only lost ace Corbin Burnes to the Diamondbacks in free agency, but then replaced him with 41-year-old Charlie Morton, who has a 7.68 ERA and is no longer in the rotation.
The other biggest addition to the club’s pitching staff was 35-year-old Japanese veteran Tomoyuki Sogano, who has actually been pretty good (3.07 ERA in 58.2 innings) but who wasn’t regarded as the kind of frontline arm Baltimore should have been targeting.
With so much young talent to dangle in trade talks and loads of money to spend, the Orioles should have had an offseason much like Boston’s. Garrett Crochet easily could have been theirs, and so could any other number of premier players.
Instead the Orioles missed their moment, and now their seemingly bright future suddenly looks a lot murkier.
Former Worcester Academy standout Matt Shaw was recently called back up to the Chicago Cubs’ big league roster. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Shaw returns
Top Chicago Cubs prospect Matt Shaw, a former Worcester Academy standout, endured a rocky start to his big league career. The Brimfield native was sent back to Triple-A last month after batting .172 over his first 18 games, but earlier this week Shaw was called back up and is already looking much better. The 23-year-old has gone 5 for 16 (.313) with three doubles and two stolen bases in his first four games back in the majors. … Former Central Catholic standout Cam Devanney is making a strong case for a big league call-up. The 28-year-old from Amherst, N.H., was batting .313 with 11 home runs and a 1.040 OPS through his first 33 games with Kansas City’s Triple-A affiliate. … Rowley’s Thomas White continues to rise through the rankings and is now up to No. 26 on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list. The left-hander from Phillips Andover has posted a 3.24 ERA with 37 strikeouts over 25 innings through his first six starts with the Marlins’ High-A affiliate, though he hasn’t pitched since May 9 due to left index finger soreness, according to Isaac Azout of Fish on First.
Alex Cora won’t be managing Monday’s series opener against the New York Mets, but the Red Sox skipper has a good reason to be away.
He will be down the road at Boston College celebrating his daughter Camila’s graduation.
“It’s going to be a very special day, one that I’m not going to miss,” Cora said. “I 100% will miss the game for that and I’ll do that any given day because it’s going to be a special day for us.”
Cora spoke at length prior to Sunday’s finale against the Atlanta Braves about his daughter and what the past few years have been like managing the team with her attending college down the road. He said the experience “went really fast” and that he couldn’t be prouder of the person she’s become.
“For a girl from divorced parents, her mom did an amazing job staying the course and while I was playing and coaching and doing my ESPN thing, Nilda was amazing with her. She’s actually a reflection of her, and I appreciate everything she’s done for her and for us,” Cora said. “Obviously our lives changed throughout and Angelica (Cora’s partner) has become like a mentor to her too and they’re very close and the fact that we were here while she was going through college, it meant a lot.”
He went on to reflect about how Camila was still just a little girl when the Red Sox enjoyed some of their most recent playoff successes, including the 2018 World Series victory against the Dodgers and the club’s last playoff series win over the Tampa Bay Rays in 2021.
“Now she’s not a little girl, she’s a woman,” Cora said. “She’s been a great student and the future is bright for her and we’re very proud of her.”
Starters announced
Prior to Sunday’s game Cora announced the upcoming starters for this week’s series against the New York Mets. Hunter Dobbins will start Monday’s opener, Tuesday’s starter is officially to be announced but Walker Buehler will most likely be activated from the injured list, and Garrett Crochet will pitch Wednesday’s finale.
The Mets are expected to go with Kodai Senga on Monday, Clay Holmes on Tuesday and Tylor Megill on Wednesday.
Extra innings
Infielder Romy Gonzalez (left quad contusion) is still feeling soreness when he slows down but could be activated by the end of the week. … Right-hander Richard Fitts (right pectoral strain) will throw a bullpen on Tuesday and is expected to begin a rehab assignment late in the week. … Right-hander Tanner Houck (right flexor pronator strain) has been shut down from throwing. … MLB announced Sunday that Phillies pitcher Jose Alvarado has been suspended 80 games without pay after testing positive for exogenous Testosterone, a performance-enhancing substance. Alvarado’s suspension is effective immediately and upon his return he will be ineligible to play in the postseason.
