The Red Sox were demolished by the Detroit Tigers, 11-3, at the AL Central club’s Lakeland, Fla., complex on Friday, but the early innings were promising.
Rookie left-hander Connelly Early pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings in his second start and third overall Grapefruit League outing. With his fastball topping out at 96.2 mph and averaging 94.8, a 1.3 mph increase over his 2025 average, he held the Tigers to two hits, walked one, hit a batter and struck out four.
Kristian Campbell‘s first home run of the 2026 preseason came against a future Hall of Famer. The versatile Red Sox sophomore worked a 10-pitch at-bat before taking Tigers starter Justin Verlander 394-feet deep for a 2-0 Boston lead in the first inning.
The Red Sox also began the game with three successful ABS challenges. Braiden Ward turned a strikeout into a game-opening walk (and stolen base), which put him on base when Campbell, the No. 2 hitter, won his own challenge moments later and celebrated by homering. Catcher Connor Wong also won a challenge behind the dish in the bottom of the second.
By the bottom of the eighth, the Red Sox trailed 9-2, had collected just three hits, and were out of challenges after unsuccessful bids by replacement catcher Matt Theiss in the sixth and batter Enddy Azocar in the eighth. Undrafted free agent Andrews Opata’s ninth-inning solo homer came too late to turn the tables back in Boston’s favor.
The Tigers tied the game with a John Peck two-run triple in the fifth, and kept adding on until the end, scoring at least one run against the first five of six Sox relievers.
Sox stars square off
Venezuela’s 6-2 World Baseball Classic win over the Netherlands on Friday was star-studded with past and present Red Sox.
Ranger Suárez started for Venezuela in their 6-2 win. Willson Contreras batted cleanup and played first base and Wilyer Abreu hit sixth and manned left field at Miami’s loanDepot Park.
Suárez threw 43 pitches, 25 for strikes in his two innings of work. He allowed one earned run on three hits, walked one and struck out one.
Contreras and Abreu were two of Venezuela’s top producers in the victory. Both went 2 for 4, and they combined for three runs batted in (Contreras had two). Boston’s new first baseman was also 6 for 13 (.462) with two home runs, a double, five runs, six RBI, three walks and three strikeouts in six spring training games before the WBC began.
Ceddanne Rafaela, meanwhile, hit second and patrolled center for the Netherlands. His role model, Xander Bogaerts, hit after him. Bogaerts covered shortstop, where he played more games than anyone in Red Sox history, and is the team captain, a role he held unofficially during the later seasons of his decade-long Boston tenure.
Rafaela was 0 for 4, but got on base in the ninth via two-out hit by a pitch before Bogaerts (1 for 5) lined out to short to end the game.
Over in Pool B in Houston, Mexico defeated Great Britain 8-2. Jarren Duran, Mexico’s leadoff man, went 0 for 3 with a run, walk and two strikeouts, while Nate Eaton went 0 for 5 for His Majesty’s squad and lined out to Duran in right field to end the game.
Both contests came hours after Japan blanked Chinese Taipei 13-0 in Tokyo’s Pool C. Masataka Yoshida went 2 for 3 with a double, two runs, one batted in and a walk.
