BOSTON – With an early surge of offense (four runs in the bottom of the first inning) hardly seen by the Red Sox at Fenway Park this season, it seemed like Friday could be the night the team’s vibe at home was going to change.
When rookie starter Payton Tolle had another strong start (six innings, four hits, three runs, nine strikeouts), there was even more reason to believe this to be true.
But it all fell apart in the top of the seventh with an unforeseen meltdown by Justin Slaten, the setup man who entered the night with 15 consecutive scoreless outings dating back to Sept. 16, 2025. The righty served up a pair of two-run homers (Byron Buxton, Austin Martin) in the seventh inning, and Boston’s three-run lead entering the frame turned into a deficit, and, ultimately, an 8-6 defeat.
“Just one of those nights,” said Slaten. “I've been feeling really good, and then tonight, just didn't have much stuff. Sometimes you just gotta go out there and try and battle with what you got, and it didn't go my way.”
If there had been one lock for the Red Sox in what has been a disjointed season so far, it was this: Hand the ball to the seventh-, eighth- and ninth-inning combo of Slaten, Garrett Whitlock and Aroldis Chapman with a lead, and a win was essentially assured.
This time, it was not to be.
“Yeah, I mean, at some point there's going to be a crack in there,” said Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy. “That's part of it. But yeah, they've been lights out. So they got to him tonight.”
Any particular reason?
“Velocity was good. I just thought he left some pitches in tough spots,” Tracy said. “That's all. Buxton put a heck of an AB on him, grinded him out, fouled a bunch off and then got the cutter, and it cut over the plate and he hit it out. But [he] put some pitches in tough spots.”
There was a foul pop early in the Buxton at-bat that second baseman Marcelo Mayer and first baseman Willson Contreras converged on. Mayer appeared to be calling for it after a long run, but Contreras, who backtracked a good distance also, had it clang off his glove.
“Being that it's a long run, Willson's holding the runner and also Marcelo is coming, I think it's just a matter of somebody's got to make a great play on that,” Tracy said. “So he almost gloved it, but it's not easy as a first baseman holding a runner trying to go that far.”
The way things were going in the first inning, nobody could have foreseen the way things unfolded in the seventh.
Wilyer Abreu mashed an RBI double off the wall in center with one out in the first. Contreras followed with hit No. 1,000 of his career, an RBI triple off the Monster in left-center that took a favorable carom. Andruw Monasterio’s bloop RBI single and Mayer’s sacrifice fly gave Tolle a nice cushion before he went to work in the second.
“It was special,” said Contreras. “Guys came out with the same energy that we had in Kansas City [in a three-game sweep], and that first inning was special, but you've got to play the game until the final out. And, unfortunately, we lost today.”
Surprisingly, Tolle lost it for a bit in that second, and the Twins jumped right back into the festivities at 4-3.
“The second inning got squirrely on me,” said Tolle. “But I thought it was good to come back and have good innings after.”
But while the formula changed, Boston’s home woes continued, as the club dropped to 8-15 at Fenway.
Tolle left in position to get the win after his latest strong performance, where he allowed three runs in the second before buckling down and retiring 14 of his last 15 batters faced.
But instead, he left with a no-decision, and the Red Sox experienced another unsatisfying night in their home ballpark.
Nobody felt it more than Slaten.
“A ton of pride,” Slaten said when asked about the success of Boston’s high-leverage relief crew. “I mean, if you're a reliever, you want to be in one of those spots. It's what you get out of bed for in the mornings. It's what gets you going in the bullpen to go out there. So, I take a ton of pride in the role that I've been given. I'm blessed to be able to go in these situations. And, yeah, it's unfortunate that tonight I didn't do my job.”