Ranger Suárez, Red Sox shutout Blue Jays 5-0

Gabrielle Starr, Boston Herald on Apr 27, 2026

Published in Baseball

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Toronto Blue Jays starter Dylan Cease entered Monday’s series opener in Toronto as Major League Baseball’s strikeout leader, but it was Ranger Suárez who racked up the punchouts, took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, and had himself a career night.

In the American League East rivals’ first meeting of the year, Suárez held the Blue Jays to one hit and one walk over eight shutout innings, with a season-high 10 strikeouts.

Suarez’s 105-pitch performance propelled the Boston Red Sox to a 5-0 win, and their first three-game winning streak of the year.

“He was absolutely outstanding,” interim manager Chad Tracy told reporters after his second game, and win, at the helm. “He just commanded the game.”

Suárez became the first Red Sox pitcher with a shutout start of at least eight innings with no more than one hit allowed since Eduardo Rodriguez on Sept. 4, 2016. The last Red Sox pitcher to put up such numbers with double-digit strikeouts was Jon Lester on May 3, 2014.

“Insane,” catcher Carlos Narváez, who caught for Suárez and contributed a two-run homer in the eighth, told NESN’s Jahmai Webster of the Sox starter’s performance. “He’s a dude, right? He’s been showing this for the last couple years. … That’s who he is. He’s a competitor, and he showed up tonight.”

After allowing four earned runs in each of his first two starts of the season, the new Sox southpaw has three shutout performances of at least six innings in his subsequent four outings. He’s lowered his ERA to 3.09.

Suárez pitched with a lead from the fourth inning when Marcelo Mayer’s RBI single put Boston on the board. The Red Sox tallied nine hits, including two apiece from Mayer and Wilyer Abreu, four walks and only struck out eight times. Though they left eight men on base, they were 4 for 8 with runners in scoring position.

Though Cease pitched 5 2/3 innings, his undoing was a long and chaotic top of the fifth in which the Red Sox were the recipients of some good luck for a change.

Cease issued a one-out walk to Caleb Durbin, but the rest of the fifth-inning mess came with two outs: Jarren Duran reached on force-out, and was quickly joined on the bases by Willson Contreras, hit by a pitch for the sixth time this season. Cease attempted to pick Duran off second, but threw wide, and both runners advanced on his error. Roman Anthony’s dribbling single sent Cease tumbling in the shallow infield while Duran scored Boston’s second run. Abreu’s sixth double of the year brought Contreras home before Cease got Trevor Story to fly out to center to strand Anthony and Abreu on second and third, respectively.

“Obviously, we got a little break there when he stumbled off the mound on the ball Roman hit and couldn’t collect it,” Tracy said.

Cease’s night came to an end before he could record the final out of the sixth. He allowed four earned runs on seven hits, three walks and struck out five, on 107 pitches.

Though Suárez’s no-hit bid came to an end in the bottom of the sixth, Jesús Sánchez’s leadoff double proved a blip on the radar. The new Sox southpaw faced the minimum in seven of his eight innings. He utilized his sinker, four-seam fastball and cutter almost equally, but also saw success with his curveball, which yielded five of his 14 total swing-and-misses.

By the end of the seventh, Suárez had himself a career first. He had never gone at least seven innings with no more than one hit allowed before. He was the first Red Sox pitcher to do so since Garrett Crochet last April.

Narváez’s two-run homer in the eighth made Monday the club’s fifth consecutive game with at least one round-tripper, a promising development for a Red Sox team that’s struggled to power themselves to victories this spring.

In the ninth inning, Greg Weissert became the second and final Red Sox pitcher to take the mound. He worked around a two-out pinch-hit double by Daulton Varsho to preserve the shutout.

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