By Laura Soukkavong –
BOSTON — September baseball has a way of stripping away everything that does not matter. Style points disappear, excuses become worthless, and the standings eventually reduce every night to the same basic requirement: win the game in front of you.
The Boston Red Sox are doing exactly that. They reached 80 victories Monday night at Fenway Park by beating the Los Angeles Angels, 5-2, extending their winning streak to five games and continuing a stretch in which pitching and early offense have increasingly worked together.
Boston improved to 80-65, becoming the third American League team and eighth Major League Baseball team to reach 80 victories this season. The Red Sox are also 16-9 over their last 25 games since August 13, a run that has given their September baseball considerably more weight.
This one was largely decided before the Angels had much opportunity to settle into Fenway Park. Adley Rutschman and Jarren Duran homered in the second inning, and Eli White added an RBI single in the third as Boston scored all five of its runs against Los Angeles starter Grayson Rodriguez.
The decisive swing belonged to Rutschman. With Boston positioned to do damage in the second, he launched a three-run home run that gave the Red Sox the kind of early separation their pitching staff has recently made especially difficult to overcome.
The contact itself was extraordinary. Rutschman’s home run left the bat at 112.1 mph, the hardest-hit ball of his career, and continued a productive four-game stretch in which he is 4-for-16 with a double, three home runs and five runs batted in.
Duran added power of his own in the same inning, hitting a solo home run before doubling in the fifth. He finished 2-for-4 with two extra-base hits, giving Boston another source of immediate offense near the top of a lineup that did not need to wait until the later innings to establish control.
The home run was Duran’s 20th or more of the season, marking the second time in his career he has reached that level. He previously hit 21 home runs in 2024, and Monday also became his fourth game this season with multiple extra-base hits.
Those two home runs carried significance beyond the individual totals. Boston has now recorded 40 games this season with multiple home runs and owns a 29-11 record in those contests, another indication of how dramatically the offense changes when the Red Sox produce power from more than one spot in the lineup.
Yet the fifth run demonstrated that Boston did not have to rely exclusively on the long ball. Caleb Durbin singled and scored in the third before Eli White delivered an RBI single, pushing the advantage to five runs while Rodriguez struggled to contain the Red Sox.
White later singled again in the eighth to finish 2-for-4. His hitting streak has reached seven games, one short of his career high, and he is batting .391 during that stretch with nine hits in 23 at-bats, including three doubles and a home run, while driving in nine runs.
White has also driven in a run in three consecutive games, matching his career high. His back-to-back multi-hit performances are his first since doing it across two games with Atlanta from July 23-29, 2025.
Durbin contributed another multi-hit game by finishing 2-for-4 with a double and a run scored. He now has 31 multi-hit performances this season, only two fewer than the 33 he recorded last year with Milwaukee.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa created another kind of pressure by repeatedly reaching base. He walked and scored in the second, singled in the third and drew another walk in the fifth, reaching safely three times in a game for the sixth time this season.
All of that offense gave Brayan Bello something every starting pitcher appreciates: room to work. Bello responded by giving Boston five scoreless innings while allowing four hits and two walks and striking out seven.
The seven strikeouts matched Bello’s season high, previously established May 5 at Detroit. He also completed at least five scoreless innings for the third time this season and eighth time in his career.
Bello’s performance becomes more significant when placed alongside what Boston’s pitching staff has been doing recently. The Red Sox have now allowed two runs or fewer in four consecutive games, only the second time this season they have produced a streak of that length.
That combination is difficult for any opponent to overcome. Boston scored five runs early Monday, and its pitching ensured Los Angeles spent the rest of the evening attempting to erase a deficit without being given enough opportunities to do it.
The Angels finally broke through after Bello’s night was complete. Moisés Ballesteros hit a solo home run in the sixth inning, his eighth of the season, cutting into Boston’s lead.
Ballesteros was easily Los Angeles’ most productive hitter Monday, finishing 3-for-4 with a home run, double and single. It was the first three-hit game of his career and his 14th multi-hit performance of the season.
Wade Meckler also found ways to reach base, going 1-for-2 with two walks and scoring in the eighth. He has reached base safely three times in 12 games this season and is batting .400 with a 1.002 OPS over his last eight games dating to August 30.
Mike Trout extended his hitting streak to five games with a third-inning single. He is batting .350 during the streak, collecting seven hits in 20 at-bats since September 2.
Those individual performances could not rescue an Angels team that continues moving in the opposite direction from Boston. Los Angeles fell to 54-90 and has lost 12 of its last 14 games after previously winning seven of 11.
The Angels are now a season-high 36 games below .500 and have fallen to 24-46 away from home. Their difficulties in series openers continued as well, dropping them to 13-34 in those games and 3-11 over their last 14.
Rodriguez never gave Los Angeles much opportunity to change that direction Monday. He allowed five runs on six hits over four innings while walking four and striking out three.
The five runs were a departure from a stretch in which Rodriguez had allowed three runs or fewer in 10 of his previous 16 starts, including six of the previous seven. His four walks matched a season high, and the two home runs allowed also equaled his highest total in a game this season.
Boston’s advantage was not simply that it hit Rodriguez hard. The Red Sox forced him to deal with traffic, accepted walks and capitalized when pitches arrived in locations they could punish.
That approach created the five-run cushion before the fourth inning was complete. Once Bello established that he was not going to give Los Angeles an immediate response, the game took on the shape Boston wanted.
There is also something notable about how the Red Sox have handled the Angels this season. Boston is now 4-0 against Los Angeles and has outscored the Angels 25-10 in those games, turning the season series into another area where the difference between the clubs has been unmistakable.
Fenway Park has not always provided Boston with a significant advantage this season. The Red Sox are only two games above .500 at home at 36-34, but they have won seven of their last 10 home games since August 17.
They have also become increasingly reliable when beginning a series. Monday improved Boston to 28-19 in series openers, including victories in six of its last seven since August 17.
Those trends become more meaningful in September because there is increasingly little time for corrections. The first five months of a season provide opportunities to recover from bad weeks and wasted games, but September steadily removes that luxury.
Boston’s current response has been to stack victories. Five straight wins have pushed the Red Sox to 80 victories, while a 16-9 stretch over their last 25 games has given them sustained momentum rather than merely a brief winning burst.
The most encouraging element may be how those victories are being constructed. Monday included two home runs, nine hits from the offense and another starting pitching performance in which the opponent failed to score.
Rutschman supplied the biggest swing, Duran added another home run and an extra-base hit, White continued his hitting streak, Durbin recorded another multi-hit performance and Kiner-Falefa reached base three times. Bello then made the early production stand by refusing to allow Los Angeles onto the scoreboard during his five innings.
That is a considerably more sustainable formula than waiting every night for one player to rescue the game. Boston received production throughout the lineup Monday and paired it with another strong pitching performance.
The Angels eventually scored twice, but by then the Red Sox had built enough distance to absorb it. Boston did not need another late rally or a dramatic final swing because the most important damage had already been inflicted.
There are still games remaining and work ahead for a Red Sox team that cannot afford to treat 80 victories as a destination. Reaching that number matters because of what it says about the season to this point, but September will ultimately be remembered for what Boston does after reaching it.
For one night, though, the formula was difficult to criticize. The Red Sox hit early, Bello put up zeroes, and Los Angeles spent the evening chasing a game Boston had seized in the opening innings.
Five consecutive victories have now brought Boston to 80-65. At this point in the season, the arithmetic is becoming as important as anything else, and the Red Sox continue adding the number that matters most: another win.