Brayan Bello struck out a career-high 11 batters and set a Red Sox record by getting the first 10 outs of the game via strikeout in a 12-9 win over the Oakland A’s.
Brayan Bello’s limited experience against the Oakland A’s hadn’t gone well. Over two career games (one of them a start at the Coliseum back in April), the A’s had grabbed 10 earned runs on 10 hits, including five homers, drawn three walks, and struck out nine times. He’d hit one batsman, and thrown one wild pitch.
But in Tuesday night’s series opener, the lucky number was 11: the Red Sox gave their starter 11 early runs of support, and Bello answered with a career-high 11 strikeouts and a franchise-record night. The Red Sox beat the A’s 12-9 to pick up their 50th win of the season (and the 490th of Alex Cora’s managerial career to pass Bill Carrigan for fourth in franchise history).
From start to finish, victory was neither clean nor easy; each team collected 13 hits, both starters had two wild pitches within the first two innings. Bello’s performance was mixed bag from first pitch: he struck out three in the first, but allowed two earned runs on three hits, giving Oakland an immediate 2-0 advantage.
The visitors’ lead held for approximately three seconds. In his Fenway first at-bat as an All-Star, Jarren Duran blasted one 427 feet to center; it would’ve been a home run in 25 other ballparks, but the leadoff man settled for a double. (His for lightning-fast speed is clearly spreading; the A’s instinctively threw to third, but MLB’s leader in triples pulled up at second.)
David Hamilton quickly drove Duran in to get Boston on the board, then advanced to third on Tyler O’Neill’s first-pitch double to deep center. Rafael Devers drove them both in with a single for a 3-2 lead, then advanced to second on a wild pitch.
That would be all for the first inning, but the Red Sox got back down to business immediately. It would take two A’s pitchers to get through a combined 11 batters in an eight-run second inning, the most runs scored by the Red Sox in any inning since April 23, 2023 in Milwaukee, and their most in a Fenway frame since May 2019.
