By Mac Cerullo Boston Herald
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BOSTON — This week’s three-game set against the Los Angeles Angels should have been a golden opportunity for the Red Sox. Coming off a series victory in Atlanta, the club had a chance to build momentum at home against a mediocre Angels team that had lost seven of its last eight.

Things didn’t quite go according to plan, but the Red Sox were at least able to salvage a badly needed win in the finale to avoid what would have been a catastrophic sweep.

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Boston came from behind on four separate occasions Wednesday to pull out a gritty 11-9 win, without question among their most unlikely of the season. The club overcame a disastrous outing by Lucas Giolito, who became the latest Red Sox starter to crash out early with seven runs allowed over 1 2/3 innings, and finally put the Angels away for good on Ceddanne Rafaela’s walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth.

After losing so many close games, it was a refreshing breakthrough for a club that needs things to start going its way.

It was clear on Wednesday that Giolito didn’t have it from the jump.

The Red Sox right-hander allowed back-to-back doubles to start the game, the latter coming courtesy of Nolan Schanuel to put the Angels up 1-0 right away. Giolito then surrendered a single to Mike Trout before Taylor Ward took him deep for a three-run home run, his 17th of the season.

Then, after the Red Sox rallied for five runs in the bottom of the first to take the lead, Giolito gave up three more extra-base hits, including a game-tying triple by Zach Neto and a go-ahead double by Schanuel. Ward tacked on a sacrifice fly, and once Giolito walked Jorge Soler, Cora decided he’d seen enough and pulled the beleaguered veteran.

Giolito’s final line: seven runs on eight hits and a walk over just 1 2/3 innings. He drew only one whiff on 43 pitches, and six of his eight hits went for extra bases.

Giolito’s debacle was only the latest example of a troubling team-wide trend.

Earlier this week Cora pointed to the pitching staff’s tendency to allow a lot of first inning runs as a major concern, and the numbers back it up. Boston has now allowed 47 runs in the first inning this season, which is more than any other inning and ranks second-worst in MLB behind only the moribund Colorado Rockies, who have given up 66.

That many first inning runs means the Red Sox have spent a lot of time trying to climb out of early holes. Normally that’s a dangerous way to live, though Wednesday the club was able to mount a response right away.

After falling behind 4-0, the Red Sox had their first six batters reach safely against Angels starter Jose Soriano in the bottom of the first. Wilyer Abreu broke the ice with a run-scoring single, and after Carlos Narvaez singled to load the bases Marcelo Mayer drew a walk to record his first career RBI.

Abraham Toro kept the line moving with an RBI single of his own, and David Hamilton delivered the big hit with his go-ahead two-run double to make it 5-4.

Even after falling behind 7-5 in the second, the bats kept putting pressure on the Angels.

Boston loaded the bases with no outs again in the bottom of the fourth after Jarren Duran worked an 11-pitch walk against Soriano, blowing up the right-hander’s pitch count and bringing Rafael Devers to the plate. The slugger struck out but the Red Sox capitalized on the chance anyway when Abreu hit a sacrifice fly to deep center field and Carlos Narvaez tied the game with an RBI single.

That also chased Soriano, who allowed seven runs over 3 2/3 innings. Hunter Strickland came on and got out of the jam without further incident by drawing a flyout from Mayer.

From that point on the two sides traded blows.

Finally, trailing 9-8 in the bottom of the eighth, the Red Sox tied it again when Trevor Story reached on a fielding error at third and came around to score on a single up the middle by Rafael Devers.

At that point the Red Sox badly needed a shutdown inning, and after failing the first three chances, it turned out the fourth time was the charm.