Eduardo Rodriguez pitched at Fenway Park for the first time since 2021.
The Detroit Tigers‘ left-hander, who signed a five-year, $77 million free-agent deal with the Tigers in November 2021, hadn’t taken the mound at Fenway Park since the end of his six-year tenure with the Boston Red Sox.
In his return, Rodriguez allowed six runs across five innings in the Tigers’ 6-3 loss in Sunday’s series finale. The Tigers (53-65) won one of three games in Boston ahead of a two-game series against the Minnesota Twins — first place in the American League Central — at Target Field.
“They’re a good team,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch told reporters in Boston, when asked about the status of the Red Sox. “They’re a good team, and they’re going to hang in there, especially in this ballpark, and put a lot of pressure on you. … You have to play clean to beat them.”
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The Red Sox tagged Rodriguez for one run in the second inning, two runs in the third inning and three runs in the fifth inning. The Tigers trailed, 3-2, entering the bottom of the fifth inning, when Rodriguez imploded.
Three consecutive hits doomed Rodriguez: Trevor Story (double), Masataka Yoshida (single) and Adam Duvall (three-run home run).
Left fielder Akil Baddoo lost the ball in the sun on Story’s double, but Rodriguez was responsible for Duvall crushing a first-pitch elevated 91.4 mph fastball for a 403-foot three-run homer.
The homer extended Boston’s lead to 6-3.
The Red Sox scored their first run on Connor Wong’s triple in the second inning, which occurred immediately after a two-out walk to Triston Casas. A solo home run from Justin Turner and an RBI single from Duvall in the third inning accounted for the second and third runs.
“The first thing I look at is the struggles with two outs,” Hinch said. “He could get into innings and then struggle at the end. I know the big blows are hard to overcome, whether it’s Turner’s solo or Duvall’s three-run homer. They delivered the biggest punch, but Eduardo hung in there and tried to keep us in the game.”
Rodriguez, 30, gave up six runs on 10 hits and one walk with eight strikeouts, throwing 65 of 94 pitches for strikes. That boosted his ERA from 2.75 to 3.13 through 18 starts this season.
He threw 45 four-seam fastballs (47.8%), 14 changeups (14.9%), 14 sliders (14.9%), 11 cutters (11.7%) and 10 sinkers (10.6%). His cutter, typically one of his best pitches, wasn’t sharp for the second start in a row.
A slow start, a bad finish
The Tigers posted three hits in the first seven innings: Riley Greene’s single in the first inning, Zach McKinstry’s single in the second inning and Baddoo’s home run in the fifth inning.
There was one walk, too, from Kerry Carpenter in the fourth inning.
The Tigers took a 1-0 lead in the second inning against right-hander Kutter Crawford. Spencer Torkelson was clipped by a seven-pitch fastball to put the leadoff batter on base, and he advanced to third base on McKinstry’s single off a second-pitch cutter. On the play, McKinstry moved up to second base.
With two runners in scoring position, Miguel Cabrera grounded out to shortstop for the first out and Torkelson scored for the Tigers’ first run. McKinstry was stranded at second base when Zack Short popped out and Jake Rogers grounded out.
A two-out home run from Baddoo off Crawford’s first-pitch fastball cut the Tigers’ deficit to 3-2 in the fifth inning.
The 24-year-old has two of his seven homers this season across 10 games (nine starts) in August. The Tigers have produced at least one home run in the past nine games, the longest streak for the franchise since May 6-15, 2018.
In the sixth inning, Matt Vierling reached safely and moved up to second base on a pair of errors by second baseman Pablo Reyes. He bounced over to third base on Carpenter’s flyout and scored on Torkelson’s groundout. Still, the Red Sox controlled a 6-3 lead entering the final three innings.
The Tigers, facing right-handed reliever Chris Martin, collected three hits — including two extra-base hits — in the eighth inning but couldn’t produce a run. Riley Greene was thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple, then Vierling (single) and Carpenter (ground-rule double) were stranded when Torkelson grounded out to shortstop.
McKinstry hit a single off right-handed reliever Kenley Jansen, the closer, to start the ninth inning. The next three batters were retired to end the game: Cabrera (flyout), Isan Díaz (pop out) and Rogers (pop out).
The Tigers finished with seven hits and one walk.
Low-leverage work
Right-handed reliever Alex Lange, who entered Sunday’s finale 7.40 ERA and 26 walks in his past 20⅔ innings, delivered a scoreless eighth inning in a low-leverage appearance, as the Tigers trailed by three runs.
The 27-year-old worked around a two-out walk to Casas.
“He threw more fastballs and tightened up his breaking ball a little bit,” Hinch said. “He got squeezed on the walk, so it’s hard to hold that against him. We needed to work pretty hard to get him in the game. … For him to wait this long, and probably feel the stress of being used in a different way, I think he’s handled it great.”
It was Lange’s first outing since Aug. 7. He had allowed three walks in each of his previous three appearances; Lange’s last game without a walk was July 29.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.