Red Sox Notes: Richard Fitts Shows Yankees Boston Won Alex Verdugo Trade

Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Richard Fitts wasn't in an envious position Friday night.

Less than an hour prior to first pitch at Yankee Stadium, the Red Sox scratched Tanner Houck and turned to Fitts to make his second career MLB start. Getting very late notice to go against a vaunted Yankees lineup in the bright lights of Yankee Stadium usually spells trouble for young pitchers.

But not for Fitts.

The 24-year-old turned in another strong showing on a big-league mound, pitching five scoreless innings in which he allowed two hits and walked three while striking out two. The two he punched out? New York's best hitters in Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, who took Cam Booser deep for a monumental and decisive grand slam in the bottom of the seventh inning in a 5-4 win for the Yankees.

Getting to pitch against the Yankees gave Fitts the opportunity to show them what they missed out on. New York drafted the right-hander in the sixth round of the 2021 draft before shipping him and two other arms -- Greg Weissert and Nicholas Judice -- to the Red Sox for Alex Verdugo this offseason.

Fitts' first inning was a high-wire act. He got two outs before walking the bases loaded, but got out of the jam when he got Jazz Chisholm Jr. to fly out to end the threat. Fitts settled in nicely after that, retiring nine of 10 batters from the second to fourth innings.

"At one point a few years ago he knew he was going to be pitch at Yankee Stadium," Red Sox manager Alex Cora said during a mid-game interview on the Apple TV+ broadcast. "He competes, he's got good stuff and hopefully he can give us five (innings)."

Fitts gave the Red Sox five innings they were looking for and ended his outing by getting Soto looking at a splitter down in the zone. It felt like Fitts, who threw 90 pitches, could have given the Red Sox perhaps one more inning, but Cora didn't push it.

Fitts also faced Verdugo twice on the night and got him out each time. It's been a miserable season in pinstripes for Verdugo, who is teetering on being out of New York's outfield rotation. Verdugo went 0-for-3 from the No. 9 spot in the Yankees order Friday and is batting a career-low .236 with 12 home runs and 58 RBIs. It's been such a bizarre season for Verdugo that he felt some of his struggles came from being allergic to the material in his batting gloves.

Verdugo will be a free agent at the end of this season and likely will leave New York behind. The Yankees aren't going to miss him.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox have the best asset in that trade with it looking like Fitts can contribute to Boston's starting rotation in some capacity for years to come.

Here are more notes from Friday's Red Sox-Yankees game:

-- Somebody wake Zack Kelly up when September ends. It's an ugly start to the month for the Red Sox reliever and got even uglier against the Yankees when he issued two walks and allowed three runs without recording an out. Kelly has now surrendered 10 earned runs in 4 1/3 innings (seven appearances) this month.

"This last couple weeks, this whole month really has been the toughest stretch of my entire career," Kelly told reporters, per the Boston Herald's Gabrielle Starr.

-- Houck had his start pushed back to Friday, but he still wasn't ready to go due to right shoulder fatigue. Cora said the Red Sox wanted to proceed with caution with Houck instead of forcing the right-hander to make his 29th start of the season.

"We did some testing, and the shoulder is weaker than yesterday," Cora told reporters, per Starr. "...We don't feel like this is going to take longer. ...This guy is very important for us, not only for now, but for the future, and for him to go out the way he was, we were going to pay the consequences after that one."

-- Trevor Story showed some pop in his bat as he belted his first home run of the season in the loss. Story stroked an opposite-field, two-run home run off Mark Leiter Jr. as part of a 2-for-4 night at the plate.

-- It doesn't feel like a coincidence that the Red Sox offense displayed a little more life than it has as of late with Jarren Duran showing signs of breaking out of his slump. Duran, who entered the game batting .192 (9-for-47) in September, notched a three-hit performance.

-- Standings Watch: The Red Sox missed a key opportunity to gain ground on the Minnesota Twins, who lost Friday night to the Cincinnati Reds. Boston remains 4 1/2 games behind the Twins for the third and final American League wild-card spot.

-- The Red Sox and Yankees continue their series from the Bronx on Saturday with Brayan Bello and Gerrit Cole set to duel. First pitch from Yankee Stadium is scheduled for 1:05 p.m. ET, and you can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.