Red Sox roll past Angels in Labor Day series opener

BOSTON — The Angels came into Fenway looking to shake off Sunday's heartbreaker in Pittsburgh. Instead, they walked into another one, just with more distance between the final score.

Grayson Rodriguez didn't have his best stuff on Labor Day, and Boston made him pay early, piling up five runs over two innings for all the cushion it would need in a 5-2 win over Los Angeles in the series opener.

Rodriguez worked four innings and gave up six hits, four walks and five runs, two of them on solo shots. Jarren Duran got things started with a leadoff homer in the second, his 20th of the year, and Boston wasn't finished. 

Adley Rutschman followed two batters later with a three-run blast that put the Red Sox up 4-0, and Eli White drove in another run with a two-out single in the third to make it 5-0. By the time Rodriguez handed the ball to Mitch Farris in the fifth, the game had the shape it would keep the rest of the way. His ERA climbed to 6.28, and he fell to 4-7.

Brayan Bello did the rest for Boston, working around a bases-loaded jam in the third to finish five scoreless innings with seven strikeouts. Los Angeles had Mike Trout and Wade Meckler on with one out in that inning, then Vaughn Grissom walked to load the bases, but Moisés Ballesteros popped out to strand all three. It was the best chance the Angels had all afternoon, and it went nowhere. Trout finished 0 for 4 with two strikeouts, part of a lineup that whiffed 15 times on the day. Wyatt Olds, Alec Gamboa and Garrett Whitlock combined for four scoreless innings behind Bello, with Whitlock closing it out for his third save.

Ballesteros made up for the strikeout with his bat, though not until the sixth, when he turned around an Olds fastball for a solo homer to get the Angels on the board. Los Angeles added one more in the eighth, when Meckler walked, Ballesteros doubled him to third, and Christian Moore grounded out to bring him home, cutting the deficit to 5-2. It wasn't enough offense to make the late innings interesting. Zach Neto had the final chance in the ninth against Whitlock and went down looking on a call that stood up after a challenge.

The Angels finished with six hits and struck out 15 times against a Boston staff that leaned heavily on swing-and-miss stuff all afternoon. It was a quiet way to spend a holiday matinee at Fenway, where a light Labor Day crowd watched the Red Sox pull away early and coast the rest of the way. It was a far cry from the pitcher's duel Los Angeles had played its way out of a day earlier in Pittsburgh.

The loss also made things official on a day that already felt like a formality. With the Angels' math finally exhausted, they've been eliminated from playoff contention for a 12th straight season, the longest active drought in the majors. There's no scoreboard watching left to do in Anaheim, just a roster playing out the string over the final stretch of a lost year.

Los Angeles drops to 54-90 on the season and turns right back around for game two of the series Tuesday, with Reid Detmers on the mound against Patrick Sandoval, first pitch set for 3:45 p.m. PT.