Mookie Betts stepped to the plate and tipped his batting helmet to the crowd, acknowledging the raucous ovation he received from the sellout Fenway Park crowd in his first at bat back in nearly four years.
Then, over the next three hours, he and his new Los Angeles Dodgers teammates showed the people of Boston what they’ve been missing.
Betts went 1 for 4 with a double, a walk and two runs scored in his return to Boston, sparking what wound up being a pair of three-run rallies to help the Dodgers charge past the Red Sox for a 7-4 win. He also started at second, and after moving to his more familiar position in right field caught Connor Wong in no man’s land on the bases to cut short Boston’s best chance to mount a late rally.
Freddie Freeman also put on a show, going 4 for 5 with two runs scored and an RBI.
Since being traded in early 2020 Betts has cast a long shadow over the Red Sox, and fairly or not Alex Verdugo has shouldered much of that weight. One of the players acquired in the Betts deal, Verdugo must have felt some level of catharsis when he smashed a leadoff home run into the right field bleachers, uncorking a wild celebration as he rounded the bases.
Trevor Story got in on the fun in the bottom of the second as well, hitting his first home run of the season by knocking a two-run shot into the Green Monster seats. That 3-0 lead was plenty for Kutter Crawford, at least for a while, as the right-hander struck out seven while allowing two hits and a walk through his first five scoreless innings.
Crawford eventually ran out of gas once he came back for the sixth, and Betts was the one who ignited the Dodgers’ fuse. The 2018 American League MVP ripped a leadoff double to the wall and Freddie Freeman followed with a single to put men at second and third with no outs.
That chased Crawford from the game, prompting Red Sox manager Alex Cora to hand the ball to Nick Pivetta. Things quickly unraveled from there.
Pivetta allowed both inherited runners to score, first giving up an RBI double to Will Smith and then a run-scoring groundout to Max Muncy, and with two outs former Red Sox infielder Kiké Hernández hit a game-tying RBI single to knot it up at 3-3.
Things didn’t go any better in the top of the seventh. Pivetta walked two of the first three batters, Betts included, and served up the go-ahead double to Freeman, his MLB-leading 48th of the season. Muncy followed up moments later with a two-run double to make it 6-3, sending the massive and vocal contingent of Dodgers fans who made the trip into a frenzy.
The Red Sox had plenty of chances, first to pull away early and then to come from behind late, but could not capitalize.
Boston went 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position and stranded at least one runner in every inning. The Red Sox were able to get a run back in the bottom of the seventh when Muncy threw away what should have been a double play on a Justin Turner grounder, but they squandered multiple chances after that.
The killer misstep came in the bottom of the eighth, when the Red Sox got two men on with two outs and Verdugo singled to apparently load the bases. Except, Wong got caught too far between second and third on Betts’ throw back to the infield and was tagged out to end the inning.
In doing so the Red Sox repeatedly let the Dodgers’ pitchers off the hook. Starting pitcher Lance Lynn wasn’t anything special, allowing 10 hits and a walk over six-plus innings while only striking out one, but the Red Sox were only able to convert all of that traffic into four runs (three earned).
Brusdar Graterol, a reliever who was originally supposed to be part of the Betts deal as well, allowed two hits over 1.2 scoreless innings and Alex Vesia and Evan Phillips combined for 1.1 scoreless to shut the door on the Red Sox. Los Angeles scored its last run on a David Peralta sacrifice fly in the top of the ninth off John Schreiber.