Angels score early and late with help from Red Sox

Jeff Fletcher, The Orange County Register on Jun 24, 2025

Published in Baseball

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ANAHEIM — The Angels took advantage of the Boston Red Sox again.

An eighth-inning throwing error from catcher Connor Wong set up the go-ahead run in the Angels’ 9-5 victory over the Red Sox on Monday night.

The Angels scored their other five runs in a first inning in which Boston starter Walker Buehler walked four batters and hit two. The Angels also got out of a jam because of some questionable Red Sox baserunning.

Earlier this month in Boston, the Red Sox made four errors in a game the Angels won 4-3 in 10 innings.

The only negative on the night was that closer Kenley Jansen left the game with an injury after throwing four pitches in the ninth. There was no immediate report on what happened, but Jansen’s velocity was down about 3 mph from his average. Hector Neris recorded the final three outs after Jansen left.

Monday’s game was tied, 5-5, when LaMonte Wade Jr. singled to lead off the eighth. Wade, who hadn’t stolen a base all season, then took off for second. A good throw might have had Wade, but Wong instead bounced it into center field and Wade went to third.

Wade scored on a Christian Moore sacrifice fly to give the Angels the lead. The Angels got an insurance run on Taylor Ward’s bases-loaded walk. That was one of two unintentional walks – plus an intentional walk to Mike Trout – in the inning.

Travis d’Arnaud then singled in two more runs.

The four-run eighth was a fitting bookend to a game that started with both teams putting crooked numbers on the board.

All told, the first inning took 32 minutes for 18 batters to come to the plate, with eight of them scoring.

It worked out better for the Angels, though, who had a 5-3 lead.

Angels starter Jack Kochanowicz threw 22 pitches and gave up five singles, leading to three runs. As ugly as that was, it was nothing compared to what Buehler did in the bottom of the inning.

Buehler threw 39 pitches, and Zach Neto hit the first one over the fence, his sixth leadoff homer of the season, and his 12th overall. Neto ended the night with three hits.

After that, the Angels got only one more hit in the inning. Buehler walked four batters and hit two, with three of those forcing in runs.

Both starters actually stuck around and did some nice work after that.

Buehler did not give up a run over the next three innings. Kochanowicz gave up one more over the next four innings, leaving with a 5-4 lead.

Kochanowicz also showed continued progress with his new changeup. He threw it 17 times, and the Red Sox whiffed on five of their 11 swings at the pitch. They put it in play four times, a ground ball single in the first inning and then three outs.

Kochanowicz also induced seven ground balls, including an unusual double play in the fifth.

With Jarren Duran at second and no outs, Kochanowicz got Abraham Toro to hit a ground ball to Neto at shortstop. Duran should have stayed at second, but he took off for third, and Neto got him in a rundown. Toro tried to get to second during the rundown, but the Angels threw him out too.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora was ejected after that play. He argued that Angels infielder Luis Rengifo was blocking second base with his knee as Toro tried to slide in.

Kochanowicz didn’t get the victory because right-hander Ryan Zeferjahn gave up a game-tying homer to Trevor Story in the sixth inning.

Reid Detmers got out of a jam with two strikeouts in the seventh, and then Sam Bachman struck out two of the three hitters he faced in a perfect eighth.