Wilyer Abreu has inside-the-park home run, grand slam to lead Red Sox rout

Boston Globe

a day ago

But for a night, at least, the Sox sparked a sense of possibility with an offensive eruption that secured a 13-6 win on a night when ace Garrett Crochet proved uncharacteristically vulnerable.
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An anticipated pitcher's duel between Crochet and Reds rookie flamethrower Chase Burns instead turned almost immediately into a shootout.
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Jarren Duran coaxed a seven-pitch walk to lead off the first. Roman Anthony followed with a grounder to second — seemingly an easy force play, but Matt McLain misfired for an error that put runners on the corners.
Those openings were all the Sox needed. Abraham Toro laced an RBI single to left, Carlos Narváez banged a double off the Wall in left-center, and Trevor Story smashed a hanging slider into the first row of the center field bleachers for a three-run homer (his 12th) to put the Sox ahead, 5-0.
The Sox continued to circle the bases. Marcelo Mayer met the Monster, banging a double off Fenway's signature architectural feature for the first time in his career, and then scored on a David Hamilton single. One Ceddanne Rafaela walk later, Burnes, who retired just one of the nine batters he faced, was done. The Sox weren't, as Anthony delivered an RBI single off lefty Brent Suter to give the Sox a 7-0 lead.
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The seven-run outburst was the largest by the Sox in the first inning since 2021, and their largest in the opening stanza of a Fenway contest since 2019.
In one inning, the Sox had managed to give Crochet more support than they'd afforded him in 14 of 17 starts this year. The grateful lefthander responded by cruising through the early innings, retiring the first 10 batters he faced (five via strikeout).
Yet that dominant beginning was followed by an unexpected unraveling. Crochet allowed three runs in the fourth (two on an Austin Hays triple to the Triangle), and a Story error followed by a pair of Cincinnati hits in the fifth made it a 7-4 game while bringing the electrifying Elly De La Cruz to the plate as the potential tying run.
But in the pivotal at-bat of the night, Crochet threw a cutter that not only sawed through De La Cruz's bat, but left the lightning-fast switch hitter stumbling out of the batter's box — a slip that allowed the Sox to turn an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play and preserve a 7-4 advantage.
The Sox soon boosted their lead back to four runs in did-that-really-happen fashion when Wilyer Abreu drilled a fastball from reliever Joe La Sorsa deep into the Triangle. Fenway's quirky dimensions kept the rocket in the park — but the ball caromed off the base of the mesh just below the railing that connects the Red Sox bullpen to the 420-foot marker, and hopped over the head of center fielder TJ Friedl.
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Friedl crumpled on the track as he tried to change directions, and Abreu completed his sprint around the bases as the ball trickled along the warning track in left-center. His inside-the-park homer was the first by a Red Sox since 2018 (Eduardo Nuñez), and the first by a Red Sox at Fenway since 2011 (Jacoby Ellsbury).
Still, the Reds persisted, with Hays hammering a solo homer off Crochet in his sixth and final inning. Crochet allowed five runs (matching a season high) on seven hits while walking one and striking out nine.
But a solo homer by Duran in the sixth inning and a grand slam by Abreu in the eighth — this one of the traditional over-the-fence variety — permitted the Sox to cruise to victory. Abreu became the first Sox player since Jim Tabor in 1939 to hit both an inside-the-park homer and grand slam in the same game, and the first since Pokey Reese in 2004 with homers that both left and stayed in the yard in a single contest.
All nine Red Sox starters had hits, with five (Anthony, Narváez, Story, Mayer, and of course Abreu) collecting multiple knocks. The Sox will now have two shots at their first series victory since June 16-18.
Alex Speier can be reached at