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 still nearly came all the way back, twice drawing to within one run, but the club couldn’t get over the hump. Now the Red Sox have lost seven of their last nine games and are 6-16 in one-run games on the season, accounting for nearly half of the club’s losses overall.
“They fought it,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said afterwards. “Put some good at bats in the middle innings and put pressure on them late, but it just didn’t happen.”
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.
Cora said postgame that Fitts was having difficulty locating his fastball, and the right-hander said he didn’t execute his off speed pitches either. As a result he frequently fell behind in the count and found himself in situations where the hitter knew a fastball was coming, and on several occasions he left those pitches over the middle and paid for it.
“Horrible,” Fitts said of his performance postgame. “I felt like our team did enough to win tonight outside of me. I feel terrible about it, I put us in a terrible spot, not just for this game but for days to come with our bullpen too. Nobody hates this more than I do.”
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.)
— Tom Caron (@TomCaron) June 3, 2025
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.
All of the one-run losses have become the story of the Red Sox season, and following the game both Cora and Duran were asked why the club has struggled so much in close games. Both cited the team’s youth, saying the club’s young players don’t yet have the experience needed to consistently deliver in key spots, but will improve given more time.
“Personally I think it says we’re a really really good team and we’ve been in a lot of games, but we just got to get over that hump,” Duran said. “We have a lot of young guys who are just learning to compete at this level, I know when I first came up at this level I was scared to death to make a mistake and play, so I’m trying to pass that on to the younger guys like hey bro you’re going to be a big part of this, just keep going.”
“I know we’re going to hit our stride eventually where those guys figure it out,” he continued. “They’re learning every single day. It’s only a matter of time before it clicks for them.”
Cora also pointed to the pitching staff’s underperformance, noting two areas in particular he finds concerning.
“There’s two aspects pitching-wise that have caught my attention, it’s the first inning and the bottom of the lineup,” Cora said. “We have to be better at that and hopefully tomorrow is the start.”
First pitch on Tuesday is scheduled for 7:10 p.m.
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