Ceddanne Rafaela’s walk-off homer powers Red Sox to back-and-forth win over Angels

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BOSTON — In a tie game in the bottom of the ninth, Ceddanne Rafalea swatted a ball down the right-field line toward Pesky’s Pole. There was momentary confusion.

Fair or foul?

In a tense back-and-forth affair, with the Red Sox in desperate need of a win, having battled back four separate times on Wednesday, the team poured out of its Fenway Park dugout in celebration, almost willing the ball to fair territory.

A crew chief’s review of the homer threatened to wipe out their exuberance. An overturned call post-celebration would have been in line with Boston’s fortunes of late.

But moments later, Rafaela’s two-run homer was confirmed, catapulting the Red Sox to a wild 11-9 victory over the Los Angeles Angels. The win helped the Red Sox avoid being swept at Fenway for the first time this year.

CEDDANNE FOR THE WIN! pic.twitter.com/LcMJxeJtQe

— Red Sox (@RedSox) June 4, 2025

“I was really happy, because we grinded today,” said a beaming Rafaela after the game. “To win this game was huge for us.”

The 308-foot homer down the line marked not only the shortest at Fenway Park by a Red Sox player but also the shortest walk-off homer in the majors in the Statcast era.

“It’s Fenway, right?” manager Alex Cora said. “Hopefully, this gets us going. But to say that we needed this one is an understatement. A lot of close games and they go the other way. I’m tired of telling (bench coach) Ramón (Vázquez) in the eighth like, ‘Here we go again.’ It’s the same game, it’s the same script. So hopefully we can change it now.”

The Red Sox lead the majors with 17 one-run losses and have been in an awful stretch of late. But on Wednesday, they showed a resilience they’ve too often lacked this season, battling back inning after inning.

Perhaps there was some edge from a pre-game spat earlier in the afternoon as Angels starter Tyler Anderson and Red Sox first base coach José Flores got into a shouting match and had to be separated as players and coaches intervened. Cora wouldn’t elaborate, but it was clear the Red Sox had reached a breaking point.

“Just baseball talk,” Cora said of the Anderson-Flores exchange. “Disagreements that happened throughout the series and all that, but everything’s good.”

Whether or not that exchange or Cora saying the team isn’t getting better after Tuesday’s loss ignited the Red Sox to find another level on Wednesday, something clicked.

“I think when he said that, he’s right,” Rafaela said of Cora’s comments the previous day. “We are supposed to be better. That’s not a lie or something. It’s the truth.”

At the outset of the game, the Red Sox had appeared to revert to familiar ways.

The Angels recorded four straight hits off starter Lucas Giolito in the top of the first, culminating in a three-run homer from Taylor Ward to put the Red Sox in an early 4-0 hole.

But Boston’s lineup blitzed Angels starter José Soriano in the bottom of the inning. Wilyer Abreu hit a run-scoring single and Marcelo Mayer drew a bases-loaded walk before Abraham Toro singled to drive in a third run and David Hamilton smoked a two-run double to give the Red Sox a 5-4 lead.

That was just the start of the first of Boston’s comebacks on Wednesday.

Giolito returned in the second but wasn’t any better, coughing up three more runs and the lead before Cora lifted him in favor of Luis Guerrero. Giolito recorded just five outs and was booed off the mound.

“There’s no excuse. It’s super poor, I need to figure it the f— out,” Giolito said. “This is the big leagues, you have to have a level of consistency, so I’m going to work toward that.”

2 more in the 2nd 🫡 pic.twitter.com/Xi8GjhzXXn

— Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) June 4, 2025

Down 7-5 in the fourth, the Red Sox battled back again. Rafael Devers struck out with the bases loaded, but Abreu clocked a sacrifice fly before Carlos Narváez slapped an RBI single to even the score at 7-7.

With Giolito out early, Cora rotated through six relievers. Trusty Brennan Bernardino, who’d pitched eight games in 12 days before having three days off, gave up a leadoff single to Matthew Lugo to open the fifth. He tried to pick off Lugo, but an errant throw allowed Lugo to advance to second. Lugo then scored the go-ahead run on a Logan O’Hoppe single to give the Angels an 8-7 lead.

Boston once again responded.

Narváez drew a one-out walk in the seventh and pinch hitter Romy Gonzalez followed with a bloop single to center. Narváez, with heads-up base running, advanced to third as the ball dropped between fielders. Gonzalez moved up to second. That aggressiveness allowed Narváez to score the tying run when Toro hit a score-tying sacrifice fly to deep center.

But another trusted and overworked reliever faltered. Greg Weissert, who’d given up one run in his previous nine appearances, gave up a one-out double in the eighth and a single up the middle to give the Angels back the lead.

The Red Sox, who so many times this season have lacked fight and finishing power, kept at it.

Pinch hitter Trevor Story reached on an error at third in the bottom of the eighth. After Jarren Duran walked, Devers chopped a single up the middle to tie the score at 9-9 and set up Rafaela’s heroics for the victory.

“I personally feel like it’s just a matter of time before we get going, and today was a good example of what we could do when we just try to put the ball in play and just play baseball,” Duran said. “I keep saying it, but I’m just really proud of this team. How we fought. And we’re able to come back, even though we got punched in the mouth, we were able to punch back.”

In a season in which the Red Sox have made their rock bottom deeper, Wednesday could have been a new nadir. Instead, the Red Sox are attempting to climb out of the deep hole they’ve dug for themselves.

A major challenge awaits. After taking Thursday off, the Red Sox will play the first three games of the season against the New York Yankees in the Bronx. Wednesday’s win was a big one for the team, but it won’t mean much if they can’t build off it.

“They’re all big,” Cora said. “We go to New York, take that series, see where we at, and then we come home and hopefully play better here, but it starts in New York. We’ve just got to go over there and win the series.”

(Photo: Brian Fluharty / Getty Images)

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