BOSTON – Everybody knew Chase Burns wouldn’t go through his entire professional baseball career without a bad outing.
But nobody saw this coming either (except, just maybe, the Red Sox hitters).
The Cincinnati Reds’ top prospect – who impressed Aaron Judge and the Yankees just six days earlier – got a face-full of Fenway Park’s monsters in his second big-league start, failing to get out of the first inning and giving up seven runs in a 13-6 loss to the Red Sox in Monday’s series opener.
For what it’s worth, only five were earned because of Matt McLain’s throwing error on a potential double-play ball following a leadoff walk.
But it doesn’t make what followed look any prettier, in person or in the box score – the Red Sox squaring Burns up for a loud single, double off the Green Monster, home run, double off the Monster, loud single and walk.
Chase Burns records one out for Reds vs. Red Sox
The only out Burns recorded came on a hot-shot grounder to McLain after the first double. It might have been the hardest-hit ball of the inning.
Eventually Brent Suter took over for Burns after nine batters and 33 pitches.
Reds manager Terry Francona said he wasn’t sure whether Burns might have been tipping pitches or the Red Sox were otherwise picking up on tells that suggested what pitchers were coming.
“That’s something that you always probably need to check,” he said. “He threw some pitches that caught a lot of the plate, and they were definitely looking hard.
“(Boston manager Alex) Cora’s one of the best at that. They were certainly ready.”
The Red Sox mostly just talked about Burns’ “electric” stuff and their plan going in.
“Just as an offense we had a really good plan, and we were very convicted,” said Boston shortstop Trevor Story, who hit the three-run homer in the first. “We practiced execution all day, and the execution really came out today during the game.”
Ok.
Either way, Burns said the next step is “just trying to flush it and go back to the drawing board.”
That’s the biggest thing Francona said he wants to see next from the hard-throwing right-hander drafted second overall less than 12 months ago.
“My hope is it doesn’t get in the way of his next start,” the manager said, “because it’s tough. Tough on him, tough on us. But a lot of people were putting their arm around him. He’s a good kid. It’ll be real interesting to see his next start.”
That figures to be over the weekend in Philadelphia.
Francona said before Burns’ debut that one game wouldn’t define his career, regardless how he did against the Yankees – which turned out to include strikeouts of the first five he faced and five mostly impressive innings.
Make that regardless of how Burns did against the Red Sox, too.
Reds manager Terry Francona on Chase Burns
“We have him at a point in his career where I think he had 13 minor-league starts, so he’s not a finished product,” Francona said. “What you try to do is you want to see him develop and try to win at the same time.”
Burns was 7-3 with a 1.77 ERA in those 13 starts across three minor-league levels in his first professional season this year after getting drafted second overall less than a year ago.
“He didn’t put us in a great spot to win tonight, but this kid’s going to be really good,” Francona said. “Sometimes there’s some growing pains. If you don’t think it’s going to happen, you’re probably not paying attention”
Cincinnati Reds vs. Boston Red Sox all-time record
The Red Sox improved to 18-6 all-time against the Reds, not counting the 1975 World Series that believe it or not the Sox are commemorating this week with the Reds in town and Carlton Fisk flying in for the occasion.
That 18-6 mark is the second-best record of any team against a single opponent (second to the Mariners’ 21-6 record against the Reds).
Boston had lost seven of eight entering the game.
Cincinnati Reds at Fenway Park
Playing only the franchise’s 11th regular-season game against the Red Sox in Boston, the Reds got a taste of almost every angle and odd bounce the quirky, 113-year-old ballpark can offer.
That included two singles off the Green Monster, one by each team, and Jarren Duran’s home run in the sixth that curled around the famed Pesky Pole in right field, 302 feet from home plate.
Boston’s Wilyer Abreu also introduced the Reds’ outfield to Fenway’s “Bermuda Triangle” in center, caroming an inside-the-park home run in the fifth off a railing in that goofy triangle-shaped area of centerfield just to the left of the Red Sox bullpen.
Centerfielder TJ Friedl slipped trying to corral the bounce and was knocked down as the ball rolled away and Abreu circled the bases.
“I lost it the whole time,” Friedl said. “I knew it was hit well so once it came back into the lights I kind of saw that it was either going to hit off the wall or go into the bullpen or something, so I was trying to pull up and play goalie on the ricochet. As soon as soon as I tried to plant and stop to play it off of that corner, my left foot slipped out.”
Friedl’s one of the few young players with experience playing at Fenway Park, having played there in 2023.
“I don’t know how many games it would take to get comfortable here,” he said, “but there’s so many quirks in the outfield and the wall and corners. Just the way it bounces off the wall, and there’s a ladder on the wall – there’s a bunch of things where it can bounce in every different direction.”
Abreu added his first career grand slam in the eighth off Connor Phillips, becoming the eighth in Red Sox history to hit both an inside-the-park home run and an over-the-wall shot in the same game, first since Pokey Reese in 2004.
Since 1901, he’s just the fifth big-leaguer to hit an inside-the-park home run and a grand slam over the wall in the same game.
The others: New York Yankees’ Everett Scott in 1923 against Washington, Detroit’s Charlie Gehringer in 1930 against the White Sox, Jim Tabor of the Boston Red Sox in 1939 against the Philadelphia A’s, and Kansas City’s Roger Maris in 1958 vs. Washington.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Red Sox rock Reds’ top prospect in Chase Burns’ first professional clunker
Reporting by Gordon Wittenmyer, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
