By TERRY LYONS, Editor of Digital Sports Desk
BOSTON – For the very first time in the 2025 Major League Baseball season, there was a big game atmosphere as 35,452 fans entered Fenway Park on Friday night. Nearly all of them stayed in their seats when the hometown Red Sox came to bat in the bottom of the 9th inning, trailing the Tampa Bay Rays, 4-3.
Much of the buzz in the American League’s oldest ballpark stemmed from the Red Sox entering the game with a seven game winning streak. Since June 4th, Boston’s recorded the third-best record in the Majors.
Friday night, their lineup seemed whole as 3B Alex Bregman was reactivated after a 43-game absence caused by a severe right quad strain, dating back to May 24th. Since that time, there’s been massive changes to the Sox – the trade of their best hitter, Raphael Devers, and the promotion of three promising rookies – 2B Marcelo Mayer, OF Roman Anthony and INF Kristian Campbell, the latter relegated back to Triple A Worcester when RF Wilyer Abreu was reactivated from the 10-day injured list on June 20th.
Changes. Uncertainty. Errors. Poor base-running. A six game winning streak from June 10-to-16 followed by a six game losing streak from June 21-to-27. It all resulted in a rut called fourth place in the American League East with June 6th being the low point of being 10.5 games out of first place.
Tonight was different. There was magic in the air at Fenway and the Red Sox finished the night a half-game ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays, and in possession of third place in the AL East and keeping pace with the second place New York Yankees who spanked the Chicago Cubs, 11-0, just as the Sox came to bat in the home ninth.
One of the rookies, Mayer, led-off but grounded out. That left Sox Manager Alex Cora an easy decision to pinch hit his other top prospect, Anthony, for first baseman Abraham Toro. The slugger stayed patient at the plate, as Tampa Bay closer Pete Fairbanks brought his 99 mph heat. Four of Fairbanks’ pitches missed the strike zone and Anthony walked to first base.
One out, man on first, trailing 4-3 – and up came the Sox number nine hitter, Ceddanne Rafaela.
The defensive wiz centerfielder came into the game with a seven game hitting streak and he had extended it to eight with an RBI single in the second inning. His hot streak included a .444 batting average, eight runs scored, six doubles, 10 RBI and three home runs.
Fairbanks fired three four-seam fastballs to take a 1-2 count to his advantage. On the fourth pitch, an 86 mph slider, Rafaela took it long – some 406 feet to put an exclamation point on the advertisements atop the famed Green Monster. Sox win, 5-4.
It was Rafaela’s second career game-winning home run, the last coming as the tides were running high on June 4 out in Anaheim, California when Boston won an 11-9 slugfest. Tonight was different.
Rafaela (2-for-4, one run, one HR and three RBI) has been scoring runs and driving runners in, as well., to the tune of the last seven games to make him only the third Boston Red Sox player at the age of 24 or younger to accomplish that feat. To put it in perspective, Ted Williams (8 game streak in 1942) was another, along with little known Duffy Lewis, back in 1912.
Records and milestones aside, Rafaela – like the rest of his Boston Red Sox teammates – are walking a walk, tossing bats aside and skipping past third base with a resolve to meet-up with an entire roster of confident players.
It’s now led Boston to an eight game winning streak and the climb past Tampa to third place. The confidence prompted utility man Romy Gonzalez to print up some t-shirts for his teammates with an art deco, pink and Carolina blue script, reading “Tremendously Locked In.”
With Rafaela’s game winning home run in the books, it might be time to print some more t-shirts to be sure the locksmiths are all ready for the final two games of this important July series.