Red Sox offseason pitching additions clobbered by Astros in 2026 debuts

Beyond Garrett Crochet and Roman Anthony on Opening Day, and Wilyer Abreu, in general, not much is going right for the Boston Red Sox in the first games of the 2026 season.

After dropping the last two games of their opening series in Cincinnati, the underwhelming road trip moved on to Houston, where two Red Sox offseason pitching additions were hit hard in their team debuts and Boston lost its most lopsided game yet to the Astros, 8-1, on Monday night.

Left-hander Ranger Suárez lasted 4 1/3 innings and allowed four earned runs on seven hits, one walk and three strikeouts. He gave up home runs to Yordan Alvarez and Brice Matthews.

“There was some good,” manager Alex Cora told reporters of Suárez, “and there were some things that we’ve got to work (on).”

Suarez, whose five-year, $130 million contract is the fourth-richest for a pitcher in franchise history, is coming off a peculiar spring training in which he missed a significant portion of camp due to the World Baseball Classic, but ultimately only pitched once in Team Venezuela’s championship run. He told reporters health wasn’t a factor in Monday’s performance.

“Obviously it wasn’t the result that we all wanted, but physically I felt good,” Suárez said via team translator.

Johan Oviedo, acquired from the Pittsburgh Pirates in December, relieved Suárez but the Astros kept scoring. Yainer Diaz plated Houston’s fifth run with a sacrifice fly in the sixth. Jose Altuve took Oviedo deep on the first pitch of the bottom of the seventh, and Christian Walker’s double high off the wall made it 7-1, before Altuve homered off Oviedo again in the eighth.

“The little man (Altuve) got him,” Cora said. “That’s what he does.”

While the Astros blasted Suárez and Oviedo, Lance McCullers Jr. made mincemeat of the Boston bats. Over seven practically-perfect innings, he yielded just one earned run on four hits, one walk and nine strikeouts.

McCullers retired the first seven Red Sox batters before allowing a baserunner. He faced the minimum three batters per inning until one out in the seventh, because the first two Boston batters to reach – Carlos Narváez and Wilyer Abreu on one-out singles in the third and fifth innings, respectively – immediately became part of inning-ending double plays.

“He was really good,” Cora said of McCullers. “We didn’t put pressure on him early on. … And then when we had him on the ropes, he went to his breaking ball.”

Anthony’s fourth-inning flyout was Boston’s only hard-hit ball with a positive launch angle until the top of the seventh, when the Red Sox briefly broke through and ensured they would at least avoid being shut out.

With one out in the seventh, Trevor Story lined a ball to left and dove into second with a swim move that flipped him over and sent Altuve rolling away from the bag. On his back with his right hand on the base and his legs in the air, Story, who was initially called out, immediately began gesturing emphatically with his left hand. Upon review, the veteran shortstop was safe at second with a double.

Jarren Duran joined Story on the bases with a walk, and though Willson Contreras’ force-out sent Story back to the dugout, Abreu’s ground-rule double brought Duran home to score. Pinch-hitting for Caleb Durbin, who is now 0 for 14 to begin his Red Sox career, Masataka Yoshida forced McCullers to throw eight pitches before he struck out to end the inning.

Marcelo Mayer led off the eighth with a walk against Astros reliever Ryan Weiss, but the Red Sox rally bid ended there. Weiss retired the next six Boston batters.

The Red Sox tallied just four hits, two walks and struck out 12 times. Four games into the MLB season they’ve struck out 41 times, ninth-most in the majors, and scored 11 runs, tied for fourth-fewest.