The Red Sox trailed after the first pitch, and never led (or were tied, for that matter) in a 3-2 loss to the Chicago White Sox, snapping their four-game winning streak at Fenway.
Tim Anderson homered off starter and loser Tanner Houck to give the visitors a quick lead. The White Sox added on with solo runs in the fourth and fifth, both off Houck, who was saddled with his first career loss.
The Sox scored on an infield single and a solo homer from Kiké Hernández. They had the potential tying run on first when Bobby Dalbec fanned on three pitches in the bottom of the seventh.
WHO: Red Sox (10-4) vs. Chicago White Sox (6-8)
WHEN: 1: 10 p.m.
WHERE: Fenway Park
SERIES TO DATE: Red Sox 1-0
STARTING PITCHERS: RHP Tanner Houck (0-0, 3.00). vs. LHP Dallas Keuchel (0-0, 6.43)
TV/RADIO NESN; WEEI-FM
LINEUPS
WHITE SOX
Anderson SS
Eaton RF
Moncada 3B
Abreu 1B
Mercedes DH
Grandal C
Robert CF
Lamb LF
Garcia 2B
RED SOX
Hernandez CF
Verdugo LF
Martinez DH
Bogaerts SS
Devers 3B
Renfroe RF
Arroyo 2B
Dalbec 1B
Plawecki C
IN-GAME OBSERVATIONS:
B7: Dalbec swings at two strikes and takes a third one from closer Liam Hendriks, stranding the potential tying run
B6: Big hit for Hernandez, who wraps one around the Pesky Pole, for his second homer, cutting the lead to one and chasing Keuchel.
B5: Brilliant backhand stop by Moncada on a hot smash by Kevin Plawecki results in an inning-ending double play for the White Sox.
T5: Taylor can't get out of the inning unscathed -- allows a sharp single up the middle to Moncada, scoring Jake Lamb from third. White Sox lead 3-1.
T5: That's it for Houck, who goes 4.1 and leaves runners at the corners and one out in the fifth. Threw 58 pitches. Josh Taylor on.
B4: Renfroe caught leaning the wrong way at first, and is picked off.
B4: Yoan Moncada's ill-advised decision to try to barehand a chopper from Hunter Renfroe backfires when the ball skips past him and rolls on the infield dirt as Martinez scores, Devers moves from first to third and Renfroe reaches.
B4: With J.D. Martinez on second base, an opposite field line single to left by Rafael Devers is hit too hard for Martinez to try to score. He stops at third and the Sox have runners at the corners with two down.
T4: Infield single for Jose Abreu (!), followed one out later by a double high off the Wall by Yasmani Grandal and the White Sox doubled their lead to 2-0.
B3: Bobby Dalbec crushes a pitch high off The Wall in left-center narrowly missing his first homer of the season, instead settling for a one-out double.
T3: After allowing a leadoff homer on his first pitch of the afternoon, Houck has settled in nicely, allowing just two baserunners since -- one on an error, and another on an infield single.
T2: Bobby Dalbec has gotten into the bad habit of a big, exaggerated sweeping motion with his glove when he picks throws out of the dirt, and has happened there, the ball often comes loose. Error on Devers.
B1: Dallas Keuchel fell behind 3-and-0 to Alex Verdugo, but comes back with three straight strikes to strike him out.
T1: On the very first pitch of the game, Tim Anderson turns on a 97 mph four-seamer from Tanner Houck and drives it into the Red Sox bullpen.
PRE-GAME STATS: The Red Sox are 10-1 in their last 11 and have won four in a row at Fenway....The Sox are the only AL team with 10 wins this season. This is the 17th time they've won at least 10 of their first 14 games. Most recently, they did so in 2018 when they were 12-2....This is the longest home winning streak since July 2019, when they won five in a row at home.......The Sox have come from behind in seven of their 10 wins, the most in MLB....They have five wins in which they trailed after five innings, matching their total from all of last season...Sox pitchers have allowed three runs or fewer in 11 of their 14 games, including the last five in a row....Since allowing 11 earned runs to the Orioles two weeks ago, the Sox have a staff ERA of 3.02...Boston is fourth in the AL in ERA and 9th in the majors at 3.52...Sox starters have thrown five innings or more in 12 of the next 14...Red Sox pitchers have allowed just one homer in the last five games, covering 40.1 innings...They're averaging 0.50 homers per nine innings, the lowest figure in MLB...Since the DH was introduced in 1973, this is just the sixth season in which the Red Sox have allowed seven homers or fewer in their first 14 games. The last time they matched that was 2001, when they allowed five homers in their first 14 contests...Of the 349 batted balls allowed by Red Sox pitchers, only 15 have been barreled, the lowest percentage (4.3 percent) in the majors....Red Sox relievers are fourth in the AL and fifth in MLB in ERA at 3.20...Over the last five games, the bullpen has allowed just three earned runs in 16.2 innings for a 1.62 ERA...Offensively, the Sox lead the majors in batting average (.,281), and doubles (37). They lead the AL in runs scored (82), OBP (.346), slugging percentage (.463) and OPS (.808)...They have struck out just 122 times, fifth-fewest in the AL.....Over his last nine games, Enrique Hernandez is 13-for-38 (.342) after starting just 2-for-18 in his first five games....In his last seven games, Christian Arroyo is 8-for-18 with half the hits going for doubles....Xander Bogaerts is hitting .513 (20-for-39) with five doubles in his last 10 games....He's reached base multiple times in nine of his last 10 games....He's the only major leaguer with multiple four-hit games this season.
PRE-GAME NOTES:
- Kiké Hernández is adjusting to the role of leadoff hitter, a position to which he was unaccustomed. "It's the same,'' he said. "It's just a little more responsibility. It keeps me on my toes. It makes me focus a little more.'' Hernandez is used to taking part in the postseason, but it's his personality that he's brought to the clubhouse. "For me, I just want to bring energy. I want to keep things light. I want to keep the energy going.''
- Alex Cora joked that lefty Martin Perez, scheduled to pitch the second game Sunday, isn't a morning person.