Brayan Bello tosses 1st complete game, Red Sox take Rockies series
Published in Baseball
BOSTON — Brayan Bello was perfect through 3 1/3 innings in his first career game against the Colorado Rockies, pouring on the strikes as if they could quench the steamy weather that blanketed Fenway Park on Tuesday evening.
Perfection didn’t last, but Bello did. He tossed the first complete game of his big-league career, in a 10-2 Red Sox triumph.
Bello’s night began with a seven-pitch, seven-strike 1-2-3 first inning. He punched out two then, K’ed the side in the second and picked up an additional two swinging strikeouts in an orderly third.
Even after catcher Hunter Goodman’s one-out single in the fourth, the Red Sox righty was unflappable. Though he only picked up two more strikeouts in the contest, he kept the Rockies off the bases. When they started making contact, the strong gusting winds blowing in from right field kept the ball where Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela and Roman Anthony could make catches with relative ease. The Rockies didn’t get another hit until one out in the eighth.
Goodman’s ninth-inning blast ruined Bello’s shutout bid, but the game belonged to Bello all the same.
If not for a one-out error in the bottom of the first, Kyle Freeland’s first three innings would have been perfect, too.
The Boston bats, so effective against southpaws all season, made little noise against the Rockies starter, who held them off until two outs in the sixth.
But a baseball game can turn on a dime, and as steel- and charcoal-hued clouds began gathering over the ballpark and the first bolts of lightning cracked in the skies over Jersey Street, the Red Sox turned the tables.
No, they flipped the table and slammed it down into smithereens. They did all of their scoring between the second out of the sixth and the end of the seventh.
Romy Gonzalez’s one-out single got the ball rolling in the sixth. After Roman Anthony followed with a walk, Rob Refsnyder struck out but Trevor Story ended the stalemate with an RBI single to right.
That was the end of Freeland’s night, but only the beginning of the Boston barrage. Ceddanne Rafaela greeted Juan Mejia with a two-run double, and Jarren Duran brought his fellow outfielder home with an RBI single.
The lightning ceased. The Red Sox did not.
Facing Jake Bird in the seventh, Marcelo Mayer’s one-out single opened the door. Gonzalez quickly drove him in with an RBI triple, which befuddled center fielder Brenton Doyle. Anthony drove Gonzalez home with an RBI single, and Refsnyder joined him on the diamond with a walk.
Story sent the first pitch he saw 414 feet to the Green Monster seats.
Long gone, but not as long as what happened next.
Duran blasted one over the Boston bullpen. 456 feet, to be precise. Less than 24 hours after Gonzalez blasted a 454-foot homer to tie Angels star Mike Trout for the longest long ball at Fenway this season, Duran surpassed them both. And for an American League-leading 15th time this season, the Red Sox run total was in the double digits.
A Flood Alert was in effect in the area until 2 a.m., but the skies never opened up.
Bello returned to the mound inning after inning. The crowd of 30,169 was on its feet when he walked out for the ninth, and they booed Goodman as he rounded the bases after scuttling the shutout bid.
And when Bello struck out Ryan McMahon on a foul tip to complete the contest moments later, the Fenway Faithful roared triumphantly along with him.
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©2025 The Boston Herald. Visit at bostonherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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