Dane Myers came within a glove of making one of the most impressive catches we’ve seen at Fenway Park all season, only to instead earn himself a place on the next decade’s worth of Baseball Bloopers lowlight reels.
But while the Miami Marlins outfielder’s misfortune was the Red Sox’s gain, Myers wound up redeeming himself in a big way.
After bobbling Wilyer Abreu’s fourth-inning fly ball over the right field fence for a two-run home run, Myers came back to tie the game with a solo shot off Greg Weissert in the top of the ninth. Jakob Marsee followed with a two-run home run off Steven Matz as the Marlins stunned the Red Sox 5-3 to deny the home club a weekend sweep.
The ninth-inning meltdown also laid bare the consequences of right-hander Isaiah Campbell’s inability to finish off Saturday’s win. Because Aroldis Chapman came on to close down the save on Saturday, the All-Star closer was unavailable on Sunday, potentially costing Boston both the game and the sweep.
Weissert said after the game he has to do a better job picking his teammates up.
“It (stinks) to be the person that’s responsible for it,” Weissert said. “To not be able to pick up Chappy being down and Garrett (Crochet) pitching a great game, it (stinks).”
The ending also put a damper on what had up to that point been a fantastically pitched game.
Crochet and Marlins starter Janson Junk were outstanding, going toe-to-toe in one of the season’s best pitchers’ duels. Coming off a rare bad outing his last time out in Houston, Crochet held the Marlins to one run over seven innings on three hits, one walk and one hit batsman while striking out eight. He lowered his ERA on the season to 2.43 and is now just four strikeouts away from 200 on the year.
The only damage the Marlins got off the Red Sox ace came on a solo home run in the top of the third, when Crochet threw a four-seam fastball over the middle to Eric Wagaman, who lined it off the “Heart” sign on the far light tower above the Green Monster.
Statcast measured the homer at 453 feet.
Meanwhile, Junk did everything he could to keep pace.
The Marlins right-hander was highly efficient, retiring the Red Sox on 13 or fewer pitches in five of his seven innings. He stranded a Red Sox batter at third base in the bottom of the third inning, and he arguably should have gotten out of the fourth unscathed despite a one-out walk by Jarren Duran.
Unfortunately for him, Myers tracked the ball down and made an incredible leaping grab, but on the way down crashed into the bullpen wall and watched the ball pop out of his glove and over the fence for a two-run home run.
Miami had several opportunities to tie the game as things went along, stranding runners in scoring position in each of Crochet’s last three innings. Crochet left a runner at second in the fifth, men at the corners in the sixth and worked his way out of a particularly difficult jam in the seventh when Javier Sanoja drew a leadoff walk and reached third on a wild pitch with one out.
For a moment it looked as if Crochet might have balked in the tying run with two outs, but after the umpires conferred and determined he did not, the Red Sox ace drew a groundout to finish his outing strong.
“There was a lot of traffic, they put pressure the whole day on us, I think from the fifth inning on the leadoff guy got on and he made pitches when he had to,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said of Crochet’s outing. “He got some ground balls with men at first but they were always choppers so they advanced to second. But he was good, he gave us a chance to win.”
The Red Sox extended their lead to 3-1 with an Abraham Toro sacrifice fly in the bottom of the seventh, giving Junk a final line of three runs allowed over seven innings with six hits, a walk and six strikeouts. But while running in from third to score, Abreu began grimacing and was removed from the game the following inning.
The club announced later that Abreu was dealing with right calf tightness, and Abreu said postgame he felt his calf cramp up on his first step in towards the plate.
“A little bit tight,” Abreu said, adding that he doesn’t think he’ll need a stint on the injured list. “I felt a cramp so right now I’m day-to-day to see how I wake up tomorrow, how it evolves and hopefully in two or three days I’ll be ready for New York.”
The insurance run proved crucial when the Marlins got men on the corners against Garrett Whitlock in the eighth and scored on a two-out RBI single by Liam Hicks. But while Whitlock escaped the jam without further damage, things unraveled in the ninth when Weissert allowed a leadoff home run to Myers, a single to Wagaman, and then Matz came on and gave up the go-ahead homer to Marsee.
The Red Sox got two on in the bottom of the ninth, but Carlos Narvaez flew out to end the game.
“It’s tough, that was a weird game, I think offensively we didn’t do much, we were rushing through at-bats,” Cora said. “Although the stuff was good, we had a lot of quick outs and we didn’t put pressure on them.”
Painful as the loss was, the Red Sox still finished with a series victory and remain five games out of first in the AL East race after the Toronto Blue Jays also lost on Sunday. The Red Sox (68-57) will now welcome the Orioles to Fenway Park for an abbreviated two-game series before heading down to the Bronx to face the Yankees.
Crochet said he expects the team will turn the page and be ready to play on Monday.
“As long as we keep stacking series wins and keep moving in the right direction, it’s hard to harp on a loss when we just won the series,” Crochet said. “Everyone always says they drive nice cars too, they’re a good club, they took some aggressive swings today and hit the ball pretty hard, you’ve just kind of got to tip your cap and move on to the next series.”
Originally Published: August 17, 2025 at 2:31 PM EDT