April 10, 2025: Red Sox win in another walk-off during season’s first homestand at Fenway Park

Winning in a walk-off is a surefire way to energize the hometown fans. To win two walk-offs in the opening homestand is quite a nice way to start a season. The Boston Red Sox had two walk-off wins over the Tampa Bay Rays in their first Fenway Park homestand of the World Series championship year of 2013.1 They had two walk-offs in their opening homestand again in 2025.

Though the Red Sox had earned four World Series crowns in the first 18 years of the twenty-first century–more than any other team–they had made the postseason only once in the six years since winning the 2018 World Series over the Los Angeles Dodgers. The 2025 Red Sox started the season with seven road games, winning the first one, but then losing four in a row.

They came to Boston on Friday, April 4, and began their home schedule by beating the St. Louis Cardinals, 13-9. Rain caused Saturday’s game to be postponed so they played two on April 6 and won them both. The afternoon contest was a 10-inning walk-off, as the Red Sox scored twice in the bottom of the ninth, tying the game on Rafael Devers’s bases-loaded, two-out walk, and won on Wilyer Abreu’s RBI single. An 18-7 win on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” completed Boston’s sweep.

The Toronto Blue Jays came to town, and the Red Sox lost three games in a row, 6-2, 6-1, and then–after both teams scored just one run apiece in the first inning–2-1 in 11 innings on a Bo Bichette sacrifice fly.

The fourth Jays-Red Sox game was at 4:05 PM on Thursday afternoon, April 10. The starters were two veteran right-handers, Walker Buehler for the Red Sox and Chris Bassitt for the Blue Jays.

After five and a half innings, neither team had scored. Toronto had five baserunners, and Boston had three, but the only time anyone had made it as far as third base was the top of the second, when the Blue Jays left runners at the corners.

With one out in the bottom of the sixth, Bassitt walked Jarren Duran, who stole second and then used his speed to tag and take third on a fly out to right field. Duran scored the game’s first run on what one Toronto writer dubbed a “doink single” to left-center by Alex Bregman, an offseason free agent signing after nine seasons with the Houston Astros.2 When Triston Casas singled on Bassitt’s 86th pitch of the game, Blue Jays manager John Schneider called on right-hander Chad Green. Green struck out Trevor Story for the final out.

Buehler was back for the top of the seventh, but he began the inning with a four-pitch walk to first baseman Will Wagner–the son of newly-elected Hall of Famer Billy Wagner, who had pitched for the Red Sox in 2009. One out later, with Buehler’s pitch count at 89, Boston manager Alex Cora called on veteran lefty Justin Wilson to face rookie left fielder Alan Roden, a left-handed bat. Schneider countered with pinch-hitter Myles Straw, who singled to left. Catcher Tyler Heineman–with the Red Sox for two games in 2024–singled, too, off the base of the wall in left, driving in Wagner. Straw went first to third.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. then pinch-hit, too, and grounded to rookie second baseman Kristian Campbell. Had Campbell stepped on second and thrown to first, a double play could have ended the inning. Instead, he offered an off-balance quick flip to shortstop Story, who made an awkward errant wild throw to first base. Straw scored, giving the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead.

Reliever Garrett Whitlock put up a scoreless eighth for Boston, and the Red Sox rallied in the bottom of the inning. Lefty Brendon Little was the new Jays pitcher. Rob Refsnyder, pinch-hitting for catcher Carlos Narváez, reached on a fielding error by Wagner, who had moved to third base. Duran walked, but Devers struck out swinging.

With the right-handed Bregman due up, righty Yimi García came in. Bregman grounded into a 5-4 force play at second base, and Refsnyder took third.

García’s first pitch to Casas went wild and into the dirt at the batter’s feet, getting away from Heineman. Refsnyder scored the run that tied the game, 2-2, all without the benefit of a hit. Casas flied out to left.

Aroldis Chapman came in from the pen to pitch the ninth. In his 16th big-league season, the 37-year-old left-hander had made his 800th career appearance–all in relief–in the first game of the April 6 doubleheader with the Cardinals, getting credited with the win when the Red Sox scored in the 10th. Heineman singled to left, but a fly ball and two strikeouts followed.

With García still pitching in the bottom of the ninth, Story singled to left–and then stole second. Campbell lined out to left. Abreu was walked intentionally. García then struck out the next two batters to send the game to extra innings.

Brennan Bernardino pitched the 10th for the Red Sox. Toronto cashed in automatic runner Andrés Giménez on an infield grounder and a sacrifice fly to right field by George Springer. Wagner flied to left, but the Blue Jays had a 3-2 lead.

Schneider called on Nick Sandlin to close things out. On just the second pitch, Duran singled to center, scoring automatic runner Blake Sabol–who had entered at catcher in the ninth–from second.

The game was again tied, and Duran–a career 87 percent base stealer entering the game–tried to get himself into scoring position, but Heineman threw him out stealing. Still, the Red Sox kept coming. Devers singled to center field, and Sandlin hit Bergman with a pitch. Cora sent in the speedy David Hamilton to run for Devers at second.

Sandlin then hit the second batter in a row–this time, Casas–loading the bases. There was still just one out.

Story hit a grounder to second. Newspaper accounts called it a “dribbler”3 or, in light of his failure to complete the seventh-inning double play, a “Redemptive Squib.”4 Measured at 51.5 mph, it first struck the ground about seven feet from the plate, then was bobbled by second baseman Giménez. He had no play but at first base, while Hamilton scored.

It may have been a walk-off on a dribbler, but the run counted, and the Red Sox had a 4-3 win in 10 innings, their second walk-off of the homestand.

Both the Red Sox and Blue Jays went to the postseason in 2025. Toronto won the AL East Division at 94-68, edging the New York Yankees in a tiebreaker. Boston was third in the division at 89-73.

The Red Sox lost to the Yankees, who took two of the three Wild Card games. The Blue Jays won the AL Division Series, three games to one over the Yankees, and then the AL Championship Series, taking four of seven from the Seattle Mariners. They fought the reigning World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers in a dramatic series, losing Game Seven at home in 11 innings, 5-4.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Troy Olszewski and copy-edited by Kurt Blumenau.

Photo credit: Trevor Story, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org and highlights of the game on YouTube.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS202504100.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2025/B04100BOS2025.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZxALXOLBUI

Thanks to Elena North and Adrian Fung for supplying access to Toronto newspaper coverage.

Notes

1 In 2013 the Red Sox beat the Rays, 2-1, in 10 innings on April 13. Two days later, in the traditional Patriots Day morning start at Fenway Park, the Red Sox scored a ninth-inning run for a 3-2 win, in a game that ended shortly before two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon’s finish line, killing three bystanders.

2 Mike Wilner, “Bullpen Must Follow Starters’ Lead,” Toronto Star, April 11, 2025: S3. Bregman had signed a three-year, $120 million contract in February 2025, with opt-out options after the 2025 and 2026 seasons. He opted out of the contract after one year and signed a five-year, $175 million deal with the Chicago Cubs in January 2026.

3 Wilner.

4 Alex Speier, “Story Has His (Small) Moment,” Boston Globe, April 11, 2025: C1, C4. Additionally, this was the fourth season that Story had been with the Red Sox and he had not before had a walk-off hit.