Xander Bogaerts will make his first trip to Fenway Park as an opposing player on Friday, April 7, when the San Diego Padres visit for Boston’s 2026 home opener — a return loaded with personal history after he spent a decade with the Red Sox before leaving the club more than three years ago.
The 33-year-old, a four-time All-Star and five-time Silver Slugger award winner, spent time this week reflecting on the contrast between the two fan bases in an interview with Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune. “In Boston, it’s like they’re just used to playoffs all the time,” Bogaerts told Acee, noting the city’s championship pedigree. “You’ve won four times — 2004, ’07, ’13, ’18. And here, they have never won. So you can see how much they want it. It’s just a lot of frustration for the fans. It’s different. Boston fans are more intense.”
Bogaerts stressed he was not disparaging either group but explaining why they feel different. “You can feel here more like — desperate is a hard word to say — but just like a lot of years of frustration coming out. They want it bad. In Boston, they might want it, yeah. But here they want it bad, because they never had it,” he said, drawing a line between Boston’s history of championships and San Diego’s long wait for a title.
The exchange carries added resonance because Bogaerts was unable to play the last time the Padres came to Fenway. He was on the injured list during San Diego’s June 2024 visit, when Red Sox fans gave him a video board tribute and a standing ovation. “That was pretty sweet,” he said of the moment. “It was a nice time to soak it all in, because I wasn’t playing. I was hurt, and you wouldn’t want to get too distracted while playing.”
Bogaerts left Boston after 10 seasons and has gone on to contribute to the Padres lineup; the veteran infielder is a two-time World Series champion and remains a high-profile figure in any matchup with his former club. This season he has started slowly at the plate, going 4-for-24 with one double and three RBIs across six games, per his team’s statistics.
Friday’s game will be the first regular-season opportunity for Fenway’s crowd to see Bogaerts in opposing colors, and his comments this week set expectations for a charged reception. Whether the intensity he anticipates will affect on-field performance remains to be seen, but his return adds a familiar subplot to Boston’s home opener: a popular former star facing the team he helped shape and fans who, by his own account, know how to make such nights feel electric.