The Red Sox continue to rake, but not enough to to extend their win streak to three games.
After Kutter Crawford put Boston in a 3-0 hole in the first frame, Rafael Devers and Masataka Yoshida tied things back up in the bottom of the inning, hitting their first home runs of the season. Devers sent a ball 424 feet to center at 107.6 mph, Yoshida cleared the Monster, 390 feet at 104.6 mph.
Adam Duvall took his first walk of the year after Yoshida’s at-bat, then scored on Triston Casas’ first home run of the year. His traveled 350 feet at 105.8 mph, landing just inside the Pesky Pole.
“I feel really good,” Yoshida said via translator. “I’m so excited to play in Boston because all four games [were] really neck-to-neck.”
Yoshida had a stellar career in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league before signing with the Red Sox this offseason. Technically, that makes him a rookie, and this, his first career MLB home run. Teams usually try to get a player’s first home-run ball back for them, but that didn’t happen for Yoshida.
“I hope that ball is coming back one day,” he said.
Devers was thrilled for “Yoshi.”
“I’m very happy for him,” he said via team translator Carlos Villoria-Benítez. “We know the kind of player that he is, and he is a player who can hit for power, he can do it all. I’m happy to be his teammate and be able to play with him.”
Yoshida only speaks a little English, but that hasn’t kept him from bonding with his new teammates.
“It doesn’t matter, the language barrier,” Devers said. “I’ll always try to communicate with him regarding pitchers, what they throw, how we can do damage, and that’s one of the things that we get to do very well together.”
The last time the Red Sox had a 3-homer inning was July 2019. This is also the first team in franchise history with 9+ runs in each of their first three games of the season, and the third MLB team ever to achieve the feat. This is also the seventh Red Sox team with 10+ hits in each of their first four games of the season, and only the third in the last 30 years.
They’d be better than 2-2 on the season if the starting pitching was even slightly more effective.
After being named American League Player of the Week earlier on Monday, Duvall continued to do what earned him the honor.
The veteran outfielder had another multi-hit game. He went 2-for-3 with an RBI, run, and two walks. He has at least one hit, run, and RBI in each of his first four games of the season. He’s also the first player in franchise history to reach base 13 times in his first four games with the team, and joins Ted Williams (1942) and Bobby Doerr (1941) as the only players with nine or more RBI over the team’s first four games.
Garrett Whitlock will start Double-A Portland’s season opener as planned, but there’s a new plan for James Paxton and Brayan Bello. Instead of heading to Double-A, or going to Buffalo with Triple-A Worcester, Paxton and Bello are headed to Fort Myers for rehab starts, Alex Cora announced on Monday afternoon.
The manager had no updates on Wyatt Mills or Joely Rodríguez.
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Documents from the 1919 sale of Babe Ruth are headlining Lelands’ 2023 Spring Classic Auction.
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The Red Sox host the Pirates for two more games, Tuesday at 7:10 p.m., and Wednesday at 1:35 p.m., then head to Detroit for their first away series.