BOSTON – An electric crowd charged up with Scottish spectators (i.e., The Tartan Army) in town for the World Cup sent an anticipatory surge of cheers through the air seconds before Connelly Early threw the first pitch of the game for the Red Sox.
Wyatt Langford tore into the 93.3 mph offering and mashed it over everything in left field. It did nothing to diffuse the joyous Scots, who were having a ball with their chants and sing-alongs and still beaming over their nation’s historic win over Haiti in Foxboro on Saturday.
However, it was an early tone-setter in the wrong direction for the Red Sox in their first Sunday Night Baseball game of the season, which turned into a 6-4 defeat to the Rangers.
Early became the first Red Sox pitcher since pitch counts started being tracked in 1988 to be taken deep on his first pitch in consecutive starts. Only Josh Beckett (2007) and Garrett Crochet (last year) had suffered that indignity twice in the same season over that same span.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just early trouble for Boston’s 23-year-old lefty, who gave up 11 hits and six runs over 4 2/3 innings. He gave up a three-run homer to Kyle Higashioka in the second and was touched up for a two-spot in the fourth inning, pinning his team in a 6-2 hole.
It appears that Early has hit the rookie wall, which most pitchers do at some point.
After notching a 2.95 ERA in his first 11 starts, Early has a 7.36 ERA in his subsequent three turns.
The long ball has been an issue for Early, who has given up a team-leading 14 homers.
The Red Sox, on the strength of two solo shots by Willson Contreras, tried to battle their way back against Nathan Eovaldi, but the former Boston righty didn’t give up much else of substance.
Boston did have a promising rally in the eighth against reliever Jakob Junis. Wilyer Abreu’s RBI single made it a two-run game. Contreras ripped a single to put the tying runs on base and bring Jarren Duran to the plate as the potential go-ahead run. But lefty Jacob Latz escaped the jam by getting Duran to tap out to first.
Trying to pull off their first Fenway sweep of the season, the Sox instead settled for winning a series at home for the first time since April 8.
Following an off-day, the Sox (29-40) will host the Blue Jays for a three-game series at Fenway beginning Tuesday night.