Boston Red Sox Rookie Starter Dominates in Win Over Rays

Boston Red Sox Rookie Starter Dominates in Win Over Rays

BOSTON-- There's magic in the Fenway Greens as the Boston Red Sox improved to 9-0 when wearing their Green Monster-inspired city connect jerseys with a 2-0 win over the Tampa Bay Rays, propelled by a career night from rookie starter Connelly Early.

It was an exciting start to the night at Fenway as the Red Sox celebrated the 125th anniversary of the first Boston home game, with all six living alumni whose numbers were retired throwing out a ceremonial first pitch.

Early has struggled in his first seven starts of the season. After not allowing a home run in his first seven major league starts, he had allowed five in his last four appearances, causing both his ERA and FIP to balloon to 3.79 and 4.90, respectively. After posting a 1.9 walks per nine innings in 2025, control problems began plaguing Early in 2026, walking 4.3 batters per nine innings.

Early ran into trouble in the third inning, allowing the first two batters of the inning to reach via single, before hitting Ray's leadoff man, Yandy Diaz, to load the bases for the heart of the Tampa order. After striking out right fielder Ryan Villade, all 35,052 in attendance held their breath as star third baseman Junior Caminero dug into the box. Caminero pounded a first-pitch change-up into the ground, a tailor-made double-play ball for his counterpart, Caleb Durbin, who started the turn and got Early out of the lone Rays threat of the evening. "From that moment, we had all the momentum," Early told reporters, "huge spot in the game, to get out of that with no runs allowed is huge," he continued.