Adley Rutschman hit his first home run as a member of the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night, and Boston turned it into a 9-4 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. Ranger Suarez took the ball and took the decision, his first win since late June.
Two men who needed a night. Both got one.
What happened in Red Sox vs Diamondbacks on Tuesday
Nine runs, a four-run margin, and the two names that had been waiting the longest for a good headline. The Adley Rutschman Red Sox home run is the one that will lead the local shows, and fairly so. A catcher changing uniforms is a strange, slow thing. He has to learn a whole staff, learn a whole city, learn a whole strike zone that a new set of umpires works differently than the one he knew. The bat is usually the last thing to show up. On Tuesday it showed up.
Suarez, meanwhile, had gone since the end of June without a win. Anyone who has watched him work knows the wins column is the least honest stat on his line. He is a soft-contact, change-of-speed, keep-you-uncomfortable lefty, and that profile lives and dies by whether the offense scores in the innings he is still in the game. Tuesday, it did. Nine runs will do that.
Why Adley Rutschman's first Boston homer matters
Because the first one is never really about the one. It is about the twenty behind it.
Rutschman arrived in the majors with as much pedigree as a catcher can carry: the first overall pick out of Oregon State, a switch-hitter who was supposed to be the answer at the hardest position on the field. He has been an All-Star. He has caught meaningful September innings. What he has not been, for a while now, is the guy whose bat you plan an inning around. A first home run in a new park, in a lineup that already has plenty of noise in it, is not a fix. It is a signal that the swing still works in this uniform.
And Fenway, for a right-handed swing at least, has a way of being generous to a hitter who needs a little generosity.
checked the almanac: rutschman was the most outstanding player of the 2018 college world series when oregon state won it all, which is a long way from a fenway curtain call and also not that far at all.
Around the league on Tuesday night
It was a loud night everywhere. Kazuma Okamoto broke Toronto's rookie home run record with his 25th, Fernando Tatis Jr. hit two homers and robbed one from Francisco Lindor, and the Phillies rallied for their fifth straight.
| Tuesday final | Score |
|---|---|
| Red Sox over Diamondbacks | 9-4 |
| Blue Jays over Rays | 10-5 |
| Phillies over Marlins | 6-4 |
| Twins over Braves | 4-1 |
| Cardinals over Reds | 3-0 |
That Blue Jays result is worth a second look. Tampa Bay leads the American League and got run out of the building by a rookie rewriting a franchise record. August does that.
What comes next for the Red Sox and Diamondbacks
The two clubs finish the series Wednesday at 4:10 p.m. ET in Boston, a getaway-day start with shadows and a short turnaround for everybody. Arizona has to answer nine runs. Boston has to prove Tuesday was the start of something for its catcher rather than a nice box score.
The thing I am watching is not the next Rutschman homer. It is his next four or five games behind the plate: whether the swing that showed up Tuesday travels into at-bats where he is catching a full nine in August heat. Catchers tell you the truth in the second week, not the first night.