Payton Tolle gave Boston exactly the kind of start that can turn a Sunday afternoon into a showcase. The Royals were the ones left watching it unfold.
In the opening inning, the Red Sox left-hander worked an immaculate inning, the eighth in team history. Nick Loftin, Bobby Witt Jr. and Jac Caglianone all went down in order on nine pitches.
That was the kind of command Tolle had all day. He opened with 10 straight strikes, rolled through six shutout innings and finished with seven strikeouts. It was also the first immaculate inning by a Red Sox pitcher since Chris Sale in 2021, and Tolle joined Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez as the only Boston pitcher to begin a game with one.
Kansas City still had a chance to keep things close, and for a while it did. Noah Cameron matched Tolle with a quality start of his own, even after a rough opening stretch.
Cameron needed 30 pitches to get through the first inning, but he settled in and allowed just one run - Caleb Durbin’s solo homer - across six innings. He gave up four hits, struck out four and used two double plays to escape trouble in the fourth and sixth.
The Red Sox managed only eight groundball outs against him.
Per Baseball Savant, Cameron leaned heavily on his slider early, and it worked the first time through the Boston lineup. After that, he mixed in his cutter and four-seam fastball to get ahead in counts.
The game flipped late, though, and Boston made the most of its chances. Erik Miller walked Isaac Collins and Luke Maile to start his seventh-inning relief outing, then gave up a bloop line drive to center. Collins was caught after not getting a good read while trying to advance to third.
That set up a move by Red Sox manager Chad Tracy, who turned to Garrett Whitlock to face the top of the order. Matt Quatraro answered by sending up Carter Jensen as a pinch hitter, and Jensen delivered with an RBI single to tie the game. His line drive down the right-field line brought in pinch-runner John Rave.
But the Royals couldn’t hold it there. Roman Anthony put Boston back in front with a go-ahead RBI single in the seventh, driving in Durbin after Connor Thomas couldn’t finish the inning. Then Trevor Story added separation in the eighth with a two-run double.
Kansas City stayed within reach, but it never found another answer. Greg Weissert and Aroldis Chapman finished it off for Boston, and Chapman picked up his 34th save of the season against his former team as the Red Sox sealed the series win, 4-1.
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Jac Caglianone Is Back But Royals Still Have A Lineup Problem
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Matt Quatraro said the club is still being careful with Caglianones throwing ability, which means the Royals plan to keep rotating him at DH with Salvador Perez for now. That helps ease him back into action, but it also leaves Kansas City sorting through how to keep both bats in the lineup while managing the rest of the roster around them. [Read more 🡒]
Royals Let A Winnable Game Slip Away After Long Fenway Delay
A long Fenway Park delay turned what had felt like a manageable series finale into a frustrating afternoon for the Royals, who left Boston with a 4-1 loss after the game finally got going again. Kansas City had enough pitching to keep things close for much of the day, with Noah Cameron, Nate Pearson and Aroldis Chapman all taking turns trying to steady the game, but the offense never gave them much margin to work with.
Once the Red Sox finally found some separation late, the game slipped beyond reach. Boston pushed across the decisive run in the seventh and then added two more in the eighth, turning a winnable game into one the Royals could not reclaim after the interruption. [Read more 🡒]