Red Sox beat themselves on base paths, fall to Braves in 10 innings

Gabrielle Starr, Boston Herald on May 15, 2026

Published in Baseball

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The Boston Red Sox battled the Atlanta Braves and themselves Friday night, and were doubly beaten in the 3-2, 10-inning loss.

Connelly Early battled with command, but he completed five innings with two solo homers as the only damage. He allowed five hits, struck out six and avoided walks altogether. Despite the shaky beginnings, he threw 61 of his 86 pitches for strikes (71%).

The Red Sox rookie needed 26 pitches to complete the first inning. Designated hitter Drake Baldwin’s 12th home run of the year put Atlanta on the board with one out, and Early followed with a hit-by-pitch on second baseman Ozzie Albies. Third baseman Austin Riley singled with two outs before center fielder Michael Harris II popped out to end the inning.

Early was nowhere near as sharp as his previous start, when he blanked the Tampa Bay Rays for seven innings on May 8, but he finished strong with help from MLB’s new technology. Catcher Carlos Narváez used the ABS challenge system to correct a two-out 0-2 ball on Matt Olson, and Early had a 1-2-3 fifth inning.

The Red Sox starting rotation, including Brayan Bello’s two post-opener bulk-inning performances this month, is proving as elite as advertised. Bello, Early, Sonny Gray, Ranger Suarez and Payton Tolle own a combined 1.25 ERA over their last 10 outings.

The issue, and this is turning into a near nightly event, is the Red Sox offense’s inability to cash in. Braves right-hander Spencer Strider couldn’t land his pitches in the zone either, but Boston bailed him out frame after frame. Strider only threw 59.5% of his 84 pitches for strikes. He allowed three hits, three walks and struck out four, but the Red Sox only tagged him once, at the very end of his 5 1/3 innings.

Boston had a leadoff base runner in five of the first sixth innings — and a one-out walk in the second — and erased each of the first four.

Jarren Duran led off the game with a walk, then got picked off first to end the inning. Duran then grounded into an inning-ending double play to erase Narváez’s leadoff walk in the third.

Mickey Gasper led off the fourth with a single and was caught stealing second by 2018 Red Sox World Series champion catcher Sandy Leon, who’s back with the Braves after a brief stint in the Mexican League.

Ceddanne Rafaela led off the fifth with a ground-rule double and Leon gunned him down as he attempted to swipe third.

Past precedent suggested Harris’ home run to lead off the bottom of the fourth would decide the game, as the Red Sox entered the series 1-22 when trailing by at least two runs.

But then Narvaez led off the sixth with a double, the team’s fifth leadoff base runner of the night. Strider struck out Caleb Durbin before the Braves went to their bullpen. It looked like the Red Sox were about to waste their fifth leadoff base runner when lefty Dylan Lee struck out Duran for the second out, but the switch-hitting Gasper flipped the script with an RBI-single through the left side of the infield.

The Red Sox in the top of the seventh snapped a four-inning streak of leadoff men reaching. But Marcelo Mayer’s second home run of the season was more than a consolation prize. He turned right-hander Tyler Kinley’s 1-1 slider into a towering 378-foot game-tier to right-center. Andruw Monasterio followed with a ground-rule double, his third two-bagger since the start of the previous night’s game, which prompted the Braves to call for flamethrower Robert Suarez, who promptly rang up Narváez.

Boston’s bullpen was lights-out. Righty Greg Weissert set the Braves down in order in the sixth and recorded the first out of the seventh before he turned the ball over to lefty Jovani Morán, who recorded the last two outs and worked around Baldwin’s leadoff single in a four-batter eighth.

Aroldis Chapman’s teammates stranded two in the top of the ninth, but the veteran closer pitched a 1-2-3 bottom of the inning to ensure they would get to bat again.

The Red Sox entered the series with MLB’s best road batting average with runners in scoring position (.294) and second-highest OPS (.829), but they entered the 10th inning 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position. They advanced the automatic runner to third and Duran reached via two-out hit-by-pitch, but Gasper lined out to end the threat.

Rookie left-hander Tyler Samaniego took the mound in the bottom of the 10th looking to rebound from blowing a scoreless tie in Thursday’s game.

Mike Yastrzemski, grandson of Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski, had other ideas. He led off with a walk-off RBI double.