First-inning foibles continue
Angels hit Bello in sloppy finale
Angels 5 Red Sox 4
On Friday, Brayan Bello looked forward with anticipation to his 2023 debut. The prospect of answering the 11:10 a.m. call on Marathon Monday against Angels two-way megastar Shohei Ohtani had the 23year-old beaming.
“I’ll be ready,” he pronounced.
He failed to back the boast. In an outing delayed 56 minutes by rain and concluded by a deluge that arrived in the top of the third inning, Bello got ambushed by the Angels for four runs in the first inning in an eventual 5-4 Red Sox loss.
In front of a spirited Patriots Day crowd of 34,942 at Fenway, Bello offered a flicker of promise — a strikeout of leadoff hitter Zach Neto on a 97-mile-per-hour sinker — before his outing quickly went awry. Bello’s over-reliance on his sinker — 20 of his 37 pitches in the first were sinkers against, puzzlingly, just one changeup — had the Angels on the attack.
Ohtani ripped a single to right-center and, after Bello hit a batter, Hunter Renfroe jumped on a sinker in off the plate and blasted it over the Wall for a three-run homer. A walk, single, and sac fly later, Bello and the Sox were in a 4-0 hole after a nine-batter frame.
“I just feel a little bit frustrated with myself,” Bello said through a translator. “I need to adapt. If I come into the game with a plan and it doesn’t work, we need to change it. I wasn’t able to do it today.”
Bello is far from the first Sox starter to fall on his face at the outset of a game this year. The Sox have allowed 23 first-inning runs, most in MLB. They’ve been scored upon in the first inning of 10 of their 17 contests, playing from behind with regularity.
“It’s not ideal. We’ve got to be better on that,” said manager Alex Cora. “But as far as the team and what we’re trying to accomplish, we’re going to play 27 outs and we’ve been showing that.”
The team did so Monday as well, perhaps with an assist from the weather.
Ohtani struggled to grip the ball in the first, walking Raimel Tapia on four pitches and then letting him advance to second and then third on wild pitches, setting the stage for an RBI groundout by Rob Refsnyder. Though Ohtani showed signs of settling in — closing the first by blowing away WBC teammate Masataka Yoshida on a 98-m.p.h. heater — the weather did not permit him to do so.
After Bello gave up a run in the second and back-to-back singles to open the third, he struck out two batters. With a 2-2 count against Neto, a steady rain intensified into a deluge, forcing a retreat from the field.
When the 85-minute delay ended, Bello gave way to Kutter Crawford, who retired Neto on a fly ball with his first pitch. The book thus closed on Bello, who allowed five runs and as many hits (8) as he recorded outs. He did strike out five, showing an excellent — if infrequently used — changeup. The delay likewise ended Ohtani’s day on the mound, turning the game into a bullpen faceoff.
Crawford’s performance was remarkable. One week removed from being optioned to Triple A Worcester and four days after being called back up, the righthander handled the rest of the game, attacking the strike zone with a five-pitch mix and logging 6‚ shutout innings — the longest relief outing by a Red Sox since 2002. He allowed one hit, no walks, and struck out five.
“It’s kind of been a whirlwind [over the last week],” said Crawford. “But I know no matter what my role is, I have one job to do and that’s to go out there and fill the zone up and give my team the best chance to win.”
The Sox offense nearly took advantage of the opportunity offered by Crawford. With Ohtani out of the game following the rain delay, the Sox produced a steady succession of rallies against the Angels’ bullpen, with 12 baserunners over the final seven innings. But despite several chances to tie the game or take the lead, the team couldn’t capitalize, going 2-for-14 with men in scoring position — a mark that included plenty of hard contact that found gloves.
“We did a good job,” Cora said of the rallies. “We just didn’t score.”
That inability proved most frustrating in the fourth inning, when a Raffy Devers double and a pair of walks loaded the bases with one out, positioning the Sox to tie the contest with a single swing. Instead, Kiké Hernández lined out to first, and Reese McGuire — in just his second plate appearance of the year against a lefty — flew out to center to strand three.
That duo claimed a measure of retribution in the sixth, when a Hernández sac fly and McGuire infield single brought the team within 5-3. The Sox then rallied in the ninth, as pinch-hitter Alex Verdugo singled, went to second on a Tapia walk with one out, and scored when Devers scorched an RBI single against Angels closer Carlos Estévez.
But with the contest at 5-4, Estévez struck out Refsnyder, and Yoshida (0-for-4 Monday, 3for-26 since April 4) popped out to end it. The Sox thus saw their three-game winning streak snapped, dropping back below .500 (8-9).