Christian Moore hits tying, walk-off homers as Angels outlast Red Sox

Doug Padilla, The Orange County Register on Jun 25, 2025

Published in Baseball

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ANAHEIM — In the three most emotional innings of the season, the Angels received two home runs from rookie Christian Moore, all while Zach Neto departed with an injury.

Moore’s second home run of the game ended a 3-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox in 10 innings. It was just two innings after he tied the score by going deep. In between, Neto’s injury in the ninth still hung over the proceedings.

The heroics were so unexpected, even Moore himself was unsure about it all. He sprinted around the bases with a dive into third not knowing his line drive to right-center had cleared the wall.

The game-winner came after the Red Sox took a 2-1 lead in the 10th when Marcelo Mayer’s single scored automatic runner Ceddanne Rafaela with left-hander Reid Detmers on the mound.

Neto departed after he bobbled a Romy Gonzalez grounder then fired a weak throw to first base over the head of LaMonte Wade Jr.

With hands on knees at the edge of the infield dirt after the play, Neto was visited by a member of the team’s medical staff before walking off the field. A half-inning earlier, Neto made the last out while trying to steal second base as the tying run with Mike Trout at the plate.

From the top of the order to the bottom, from the veterans of the bunch to the young, it had been the same miserable story all night for the Angels against Red Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet.

One night after they collected 11 walks to ignite a 9-5 victory, the Angels added three more walks against Crochet in seven innings but just three hits, while striking out 10 times.

Without Nolan Schanuel, who was given some time off his feet, the Angels’ adjusted top three of Neto, Luis Rengifo and Mike Trout went 2 for 11. The bottom four was in its own slumber until Moore rode to the rescue.

None of the offensive struggles were surprising against Crochet, the American League strikeout leader, who added double digits onto the pile Tuesday. Six Angels players struck out two times each. Red Sox pitchers combined for 15 total strikeouts.

The victory came as the Angels received yet another standout performance from the bullpen as Connor Brogdon, Hunter Strickland, Sam Bachman and Kenley Jansen combined to go 4⅓ scoreless innings. Detmers (3-2) even rebounded after his first pitch allowed the tying run to score.

Jansen was pitching one day after he departed in the ninth inning because of a cramp in his pectoral muscle.

It came as left-hander Tyler Anderson had a short night, allowing one run over 4⅔ innings, while interim manager Ray Montgomery elected to turn the game over to the bullpen with the Red Sox about to start their third time through the batting order.

The plan gave the Angels a chance, all while Crochet had other ideas. The Red Sox starter delivered an outing of three runs or less for the 10th time in his last 11 outings, while going at least six scoreless innings for the third time this season.

“Every night presents a different challenge and (Crochet) is going to be a challenge, obviously,” Montgomery said before the game. “We’re going to have to do everything we can to scrape and scratch. We’ll see.”

The Angels are now 4-1 against the Red Sox this season and clinched their second series victory over Boston in two tries this month.

Now that the mostly young lineup has faced one of the AL’s best, it is up to them to use that experience to get after the rest.

“Any time you’re going through the ups and downs of the season, one of the things you can rely on is (working counts) for better pitches to hit,” Montgomery said. “The byproduct of that turns into walks and obviously hit-by-pitches helps too. It was reflected (Monday) that if you get that many walks, you should put some runs on the board.”