PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. \u2014 When Connelly Early\u2019s first season as a big leaguer came to an end last October, the message he received from the Red Sox was simple: Get bigger, get stronger.<\/p>\n
Five months later Early reported to camp with 15 pounds of added muscle, and Monday he put those gains to good use.<\/p>\n
Early was sharp in his first start of spring training, throwing two scoreless innings in Boston\u2019s eventual 2-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. The 23-year-old left-hander threw 27 pitches, 18 for strikes, and allowed one walk and one strikeout with no hits or runs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt good today,\u201d Early said following his outing. \u201cBody felt good, did a good job getting here a little bit early and staying in my routine and I felt comfortable out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was good,\u201d said manager Alex Cora. \u201cThere\u2019s a few things as a young pitcher we want him to work on, slowing down the running game. I thought he did a good job with the baserunner, mixing up his look and all that. Stuff was really good. It was a good start for him, now we just go.\u201d<\/p>\n
While two innings is too small a sample size to draw any firm conclusions, Early\u2019s\u00a094.8 mph fastball was a notable tick up from the 94 he averaged in 2025. Cora said they hope Early\u2019s increased physicality will allow him to maintain his velocity deeper into games and the season as a whole, and Early said he\u2019s confident there\u2019s still more room for improvement as camp goes along.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was a pretty good spot today, hopefully that continues to go up as the weather goes up but obviously once you get back to Fenway in the cold sometimes it\u2019s a little bit down because of that,\u201d Early said. \u201cBut yeah, I felt good, I just want to stay healthy and go about my routine the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Early was one of Boston\u2019s biggest minor league success stories last season, rising from relative obscurity to earn a late-season call-up while helping pitch the club into the playoffs for the first time since 2021. Once there Early got the start in Boston\u2019s do-or-die Game 3 against the New York Yankees in the AL Wild Card Series, and while the Red Sox lost the game, Early pitched well and was ultimately undone by poor infield defense and bad luck.<\/p>\n
But those opportunities were only possible because numerous other starters ahead of him on the depth chart either got hurt or underperformed. Now with veterans Johan Oviedo, Kutter Crawford and Patrick Sandoval and fellow upstart Payton Tolle all competing for the last rotation spot, Early could find himself back in Triple-A to start the season even if he does everything right this spring.<\/p>\n
Even still, Early understands better than anyone that things can change in an instant, so after\u00a0finishing last season on the mound at Yankee Stadium, he said he\u2019ll be ready whenever his number is called.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt motivated me a ton, obviously having them trust me with the ball out there in that start was really big,\u201d Early said. \u201cObviously it didn\u2019t really go the way I would\u2019ve wished, but sometimes baseball happens and it makes you hungry for the next year trying to get back into that same position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rays walk it off<\/p>\n
Runs were hard to come by for both teams in Monday\u2019s game, which remained a scoreless tie into the ninth inning. The Red Sox finally broke the ice on a two-out RBI triple by Mickey Gasper, but the Rays rallied in the bottom of the ninth with a single, a double and a walk-off two-run single by Jonny DeLuca.<\/p>\n
Carlos Narvaez (2 for 3) was the only Red Sox player with more than one hit, and Boston tallied eight hits as a team.<\/p>\n
Kelly stands out<\/p>\n
Monday was a stellar day for Boston\u2019s relievers, including Zack Kelly, who struck out two with one hit in his scoreless inning of work.<\/p>\n
Kyle Keller, Wyatt Olds, Noah Song and Jeremy Wu-Yelland each pitched scoreless innings as well, and T.J. Sikkema was charged with one run over 1.2 innings.<\/p>\n
Locals take field<\/p>\n
Two players with ties to the Boston area appeared in the game for the Rays. Former St. John\u2019s of Shrewsbury standout Ian Seymour came on in relief of starter Drew Rasmussen and threw two scoreless innings with two hits and two strikeouts, and ex-Central Catholic great Dominic Keegan subbed in at catcher in the sixth inning and went 0 for 1.<\/p>\n
Upcoming arms<\/p>\n
Ranger Suarez will get his first start in a Red Sox uniform on Tuesday against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and he is expected to be followed by Ryan Watson, Alec Gamboa, Seth Martinez, Vinny Nittoli and Jacob Webb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. \u2014 When Connelly Early\u2019s first season as a big leaguer came to an end last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[858,5,48,36543,1398,3212,4,90,297,89,151,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":["post-589155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-alex-cora","tag-baseball","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-connelly-early","tag-jonny-deluca","tag-mickey-gasper","tag-mlb","tag-ranger-suarez","tag-rays","tag-red-sox","tag-spring-training","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116122460546187025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}