He was the right player, at the right time, in a seemingly perfect situation.

With the point equal to second goal, the winning point in the first and two strikeouts at the end of the ninth Monday night, “MVP! Chants rain down from the crowd. Angel Stadium’s 38,201 spectators – fans of the Angels and Boston Red Sox – stood up.

Shohei Ohtani walked over to the plate. And with the Angels lagging behind, on his 27th birthday, nothing less, he had a chance to win the game.

But this time around, there was no storybook ending, no magical new scene in Ohtani’s awesome two-way season.

Instead, he hit a ball hard but straight into a change to the right side of the infield, failing second baseman Christian Arroyo in shallow right field to seal the Angels’ 5-4 defeat.

The end was one of the many missed opportunities Monday for the Angels (42-42), who earlier in the night could have taken the advantage in the second inning, potentially trimmed in the fifth and perhaps even come back from their game. -long deficit in sixth.

But each time, the Red Sox defense delivered, turning three incredible plays to repeatedly stifle the Angels despite their 11 hits and 13 total goals.

After the Angels halved a two-point lead over the Red Sox early in the second, Luis Rengifo hit a deep center drive that looked like he had to leave the court for a two-run home run. But at the last second, center fielder Kiké Hernández jumped over the wall and returned the ball, robbing Rengifo to keep the Red Sox ahead.

As the Angels later led 5-2 in the bottom of the fifth, Ohtani dropped a left single with a runner in second and an out. Left fielder Danny Santana, however, made a perfect pitch at home plate, setting up a bang-bang play in which runner Jose Rojas was called up after a video review Angels manager Joe Maddon disputed after the game.

“There has to be clear and compelling evidence,” Maddon said. “I haven’t seen this.”

The Red Sox defense won again in the sixth. After a first single from Phil Gosselin, Max Stassi was sent off on second, his seemingly infallible double erased after another clear throw from Hernández from the warning lane. The next two batters made quick outs to end the inning.

“It’s a huge part of the game,” Maddon said of the Red Sox outside defense. “And they do it really well.”

Fans hold up signs recognizing Shohei Ohtani’s 27th birthday during Monday’s game against the Boston Red Sox.

(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)

Still, Rojas helped the Angels escape late, hitting a solo homerun in the seventh before making it a one-run game with an RBI single in the ninth. But Ohtani – despite recording an exit speed of 101.3 mph on the ground and an expected batting average of 0.910, according to the MLB’s Statcast system – couldn’t complete the comeback.

The Angels had dug a hole too deep early in the game to recover.

José Suarez’s first start of the season lasted just three innings, as the southpaw allowed two runs in a laborious 75-throw outing.

Spent on the rotation last week in place of Dylan Bundy after impressing with a 1.98 ERA in nine relief appearances this year, Suarez handed Monday’s game to Bundy to start the fourth, struggling to avoid goals. on balls or repelling batters quickly.

“I was working a little faster than usual, a little different from what I was doing coming out of the bullpen,” said Suarez.

After opening the game with two strikeouts, the southpaw walked back-to-back and needed 25 total shots to escape the first inning.

In 30 seconds, he fell 2-0 behind Christian Arroyo before throwing a fastball over the plate Arroyo belted for a solo home run. Later in the set, the Red Sox (54-32) scored another run on a walk and two singles.

Although Suarez managed to block his fourth walks of the game in the third inning, his pitch count was too high – Suarez had not thrown more than 72 pitches in a game this year – to go further.

“I haven’t lost confidence in him,” Maddon said. “Good learning experience for him tonight against a good ball club. The thing about that team over there, you’re not going to have a lot of lawsuits. You have to beat them in the strike zone.

Bundy allowed only one hit in the first of an inning, but it was a big hit: a two-run homerun from Rafael Devers in the fourth. Bundy was charged with another unearned run in the fifth after Xander Bogaerts hit a Rengifo error and then scored on a Santana single.

The Angels reliever box was impeccable after that, but the Red Sox defense helped quell every rally the rest of the night – until a perfectly placed field change at the end.