NEW YORK – It seemed unfathomable when Richard Fitts loaded the bases on three consecutive two-out walks in the bottom of the first that he’d not only escape that jam, but end up giving the Red Sox five shutout innings.
It also seemed unfathomable that the Red Sox could be leading 4-0 after their half of the seventh and lose 5-4 and fall back to .500 (74-74).
But on a night when so many improbable, incredible things happened for the Red Sox – Fitts’ performance, Jarren Duran becoming the first Red Sox player to collect 45 doubles since 2019, Trevor Story’s first home run of a season that was expected to be over for him after eight games – they were still felled by something that’s become almost a daily occurrence since the All-Star break: a Boston bullpen that hasn’t been able to put games away.
For the first six and a half innings, it had all the makings of a Cinderella story. Tanner Houck was supposed to start, but exactly one hour before the 7:10 p.m. first pitch, the Red Sox scratched Houck due to “right shoulder fatigue.” Fitts, acquired from the Yankees in the Alex Verdugo trade last December who made his Major League debut on Sunday, found out during batting practice he would be starting against the organization that drafted him.
“It was a pretty unreal night,” Fitts said. “Quick turnaround to find out when I was starting, but I welcome the challenge.”
For the second night in a row, Boston and New York’s starters dueled. The first inning was dicey for both, though; Clarke Schmidt gave up back-to-back singles to Duran – who was promptly caught stealing second – and Rafael Devers before escaping the inning, and Fitts needed 29 pitches, only 12 of which were for strikes, to complete his Houdini act.
But the rookie right-hander improved with each frame. He worked around Anthony Rizzo’s leadoff single to get the next three batters in order in the second. In the third, Fitts and Aaron Judge battled for nine pitches before the rookie turned the Yankees captain into his first strikeout victim. Austin Wells popped up on first pitch, and Fitts had his first 1-2-3 inning.
Fitts worked around Rizzo’s two-out double in the fourth, and finished off his performance with a 1-2-3 fifth, capped off by a strikeout-looking to Juan Soto. Overall, Fitts allowed two hits, three walks, struck out two, and had one wild pitch. He threw 90 pitches, 56 for strikes.
“He knew that there was a chance that he was going to be a big part of the game tonight, and he was, right? I mean, shoot, the kid he walks three guys in the first inning and then after that he went five,” said manager Alex Cora. “Good stuff, he was able to slow down the game, and it was fun to watch him pitch tonight.”
For five innings the Boston bats went quickly and quietly against Schmidt. After Devers’ single, Schmidt retired the next eight batters and didn’t allow another hit until Story’s two-out single in the fifth.
Then, finally, the Red Sox turned up the volume. Duran led off the top of the sixth with his second single.
Masataka Yoshida had come up clutch on a Friday night in the Bronx once already this season – tying their July 5 game with a two-out, two-run homer in the ninth – and he was ready to go again. This time, Yoshida’s two-out, two-run homer gave Boston a 2-0 lead in the sixth and knocked Schmidt out of the game. The following inning, Triston Casas singled, then touched home on Story’s two-run blast. Duran followed with his 45th double, the first Red Sox batter to reach the mark since Devers and Xander Bogaerts in 2019, but was left on base.
With a 2-0 lead, Cora did something he’d said pregame he wanted to avoid, and sent Justin Slaten to the mound for the third night in a row. Slaten gave up two hits, but managed to escape the sixth without any damage on the scoreboard.
“Because he’s becoming a dude in the bullpen,” Cora said of trusting Slaten to pitch three in a row. “He’s one of the best ones we have.”
Cora wasn’t as lucky with Zack Kelly and Cam Booser, who’d pieced together a shaky inning the night before. This time, Kelly didn’t even record an out; he opened the seventh with back-to-back walks to Anthony Volpe and Verdugo, then gave up an RBI single to Gleyber Torres. With the three-batter minimum complete, Cora called for Booser, who walked Soto, loading the bases with no outs for Judge.
It was, perhaps, the most predictable grand slam of the season. Especially because no other team has been slammed more than the Sox, who’ve now given up nine. And with just over two weeks left in the regular season, the only two teams yet to hit a grand slam are Boston and Houston.
“It doesn’t matter if your stuff is nasty, throwing 97 with a cutter and the sweeper, if you don’t throw strikes, that’s going to happen,” Cora said of Kelly. “And he’s been inconsistent at that.”
“I put ‘Booze’ in that situation,” said Kelly, who described his recent struggles as the “toughest stretch” of his entire career. “So my mentality is that situation never should have happened in the first place. I take ownership of that.”
Without recording an out, the Boston bullpen had turned a 4-0 lead into a 5-4 deficit. Once Booser struck out Austin Wells, Cora called to the ‘pen for the second time, and Greg Weissert, another trade counterpart from the Verdugo exchange, finished off the seventh. Not without help from Jazz Chisholm Jr., though: the Yankees third baseman singled, but was caught stealing second to end the inning.
Almost immediately after their offense had finally shown serious signs of life, the Red Sox had been slammed back to earth. The momentum shift was palpable; they went quietly in the eighth, leaving Yoshida (single) on base, and exited 1-2-3 in the ninth. Despite out-hitting the Yankees 9-7, Boston added another game to their loss column.
“It’s up there,” Cora said when asked how crushing a loss of these proportions is. “But then you look up (at the standings), and you’re like, ‘Man, how?’ Right? I mean, I hate to say it but it’s still there for us, you know, we just got to win a few games and make it interesting next week.
“The other teams are playing better than us? Yeah. Other teams are playing just like us.”
The new plan is for Houck to start on the second and final leg of this road trip, against the Tampa Bay Rays.
“We did some testing, and the shoulder is weaker than yesterday,” Cora said. “We don’t feel like this is going to take longer. … This guy is very important for us, not only for now, but for the future, and for him to go out the way he was, we were going to pay the consequences after that one.”
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