![\"Wilyer](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2268952478.jpg\")
Wilyer Abreu of the Boston Red Sox hits a two-run home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park on March 29, 2026 in Cincinnati. (Photo by Jeff Dean\/Getty Images)<\/p>\nCINCINNATI \u2014 It\u2019s been 100 years since the Red Sox saw a start like the one Connelly Early turned in Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
At 23 years and 360 days old, the Red Sox rookie was already the youngest pitcher to start one of the first three Red Sox games of the season since Jeff Sellers in 1987, and the youngest left-hander since Billy Rohr in the 1967 Impossible Dream season.<\/p>\n
But it was Early\u2019s performance that put him in a conversation with a baseball legend. He matched his career-high 5 1\/3 innings, and finished with one earned run on five hits, two walks and six strikeouts. He\u2019s the youngest Red Sox starter to strike out at least five batters and allow no more than one run in one of the first three games of a season since Babe Ruth in 1916.<\/p>\n
Those Red Sox won Ruth\u2019s game, though. These Red Sox fell to the Reds, 3-2, on Sunday to drop the opening series of the season.<\/p>\n
Early\u2019s strong season debut was nearly pristine. He wove in and out of traffic in each of the first four innings and held the Reds scoreless until the bottom of the sixth.<\/p>\n
\u201cSprayed the ball a little bit here or there, but overall executed pretty well,\u201d said Early, who credited the defense behind him for turning two \u201chuge\u201d double plays. \u201cI feel pretty good. Felt a little bit slow today, didn\u2019t have my best feel, but still was able to execute a pretty good clip.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which is why Early was \u201cnot surprised\u201d to return for the bottom of the sixth even though he was already at 88 pitches, the second-highest count of his career, and had never exceeded 90.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been building up all spring training, and then with the little extra juice from just the start of the season, felt good going out there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere we were pitching-wise we needed that,\u201d manager Alex Cora said of Early\u2019s career-high 96 pitches (61 for strikes, two wild) after the bullpen combined for seven innings in Saturday\u2019s 11-inning loss. \u201cWe don\u2019t usually extend guys this early in the season, but he felt strong. He was strong all spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t his stuff,\u201d Cora added. \u201cI think the at-bats were really good. They fouled off a lot of good pitches, but he was able to get out of it, right? And that\u2019s what he does. Last year he proved that he belongs here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilyer Abreu\u2019s second home run in as many days put Boston on top 2-0 in the fourth. He collected six extra-base hits in the series, and now has five career home runs against the Reds, second-most against any opponent.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimilar to last year,\u201d Cora said of Abreu, who homered twice in the first two games of 2025. \u201cBut I think this is sustainable. He has a good knowledge of his swing, and what the opposition is trying to do. We\u2019ve just got to keep getting him more at-bats, especially against lefties, and see where it takes us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilyer Abreu of the Boston Red Sox hits a two-run home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park on March 29, 2026 in Cincinnati. (Photo by Jeff Dean\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
But the lead Abreu gave the Red Sox lasted less than two innings. After a successful ABS challenge by catcher Connor Wong, Early finished his outing with a strikeout of Reds star Elly De La Cruz. But Early left behind a baserunner (Matt McClain, leadoff single), and reliever Greg Weissert issued a walk to Sal Stewart and then gave up a 431-foot three-run homer to Eugenio Su\u00e1rez, which put the Reds on the board and ahead 3-2 in the sixth.<\/p>\n
Weissert, who also gave up a home run to De La Cruz on Saturday, said there was no correlation between his struggles this weekend and his participation in the World Baseball Classic with Team Italy earlier this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to make good sinkers, maybe get \u2019em on the ground, turn the double play, but (he) just wasn\u2019t biting at them,\u201d said Weissert, who impressed with Team Italy in the WBC. \u201cI feel fine. My body\u2019s fine, everything, it\u2019s just bad execution. \u2026 Bad execution of Elly and another one today.\u201d<\/p>\n
After tallying seven hits against Opening Day starter Andrew Abbott and five against Brady Singer on Saturday, the Red Sox managed just three hits off Rhett Lowder in five innings. They struggled, not only to plate runs, but to maintain traffic on the base paths. Abreu\u2019s homer, preceded by a Willson Contreras single, was the only time back-to-back Red Sox reached base.<\/p>\n
Jarren Duran drew a leadoff walk in the sixth, confirmed after an unsuccessful challenge by Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson, but Contreras grounded into a double play. Thus, the bases were empty when Abreu whacked a double off the wall in left-center, a few feet too short of a second home run.<\/p>\n
Duran drew another walk in the eighth, only to be picked off by reliever Tony Santillan.<\/p>\n
Boston had a chance in the ninth, too. Andruw Monasterio doubled with one out, and Reds closer Emilio Pag\u00e1n issued a two-out intentional walk to Roman Anthony, but Trevor Story flew out on the first pitch he saw from Pag\u00e1n to end the game.<\/p>\n
The Red Sox drew six walks, struck out seven times and matched the Reds with seven hits. They were 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position and left nine men on base.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had traffic, we didn\u2019t cash in,\u201d Cora said. \u201cJust got to regroup and be ready for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Red Sox may be a different team \u2013 Alex Bregman hit his first two home runs for the Chicago Cubs while Boston was losing on Sunday \u2013\u00a0but they\u2019ve started this year the same way they ended the last: quietly dropping the last two games of a winnable series after a Garrett Crochet-powered Game 1 victory.<\/p>\n
Now 1-2 on the season, the Red Sox depart for a three-game series in Houston. After an off-day Thursday, they\u2019ll host the San Diego Padres\u00a0at Fenway Park on Friday (2:10 p.m. ET).<\/p>\n
Quick hits<\/p>\n
Marcelo Mayer challenged one of the most borderline pitches possible when he struck out looking in the fourth, but the call was upheld. \u2026 After drawing a pinch-hit walk in his first at-bat of the season on Saturday, Masataka Yoshida started in left field and walked in each of his first two plate appearances Sunday. \u2026 Connor Wong had two of Boston\u2019s seven hits, a promising sign for the backup catcher, who only had six multi-hit performances in 62 games last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI \u2014 It\u2019s been 100 years since the Red Sox saw a start like the one Connelly Early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,48,535,50,4259,36543,4,536],"class_list":{"0":"post-651445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-reds","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston-red-sox","10":"tag-cincinnati","11":"tag-cincinnati-reds","12":"tag-cincinnatireds","13":"tag-connelly-early","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-reds"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116315176879935513","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651445","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=651445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}