To describe the Baltimore Orioles as a team that had won five of its past seven games coming into Fenway Park Thursday night would’ve been accurate but also grossly misleading.
A closer look at the 2018 Orioles shows a team that hadn’t won a road game since April 8. In fact, they were 3-17 away from Camden Yards. Beyond that, their pitching staff had the third-worst ERA in the American League. The starting rotation had combined for an 8-22 record and 5.44 ERA.
Their most reliable arm had been righthander Kevin Gausman, but by the fifth inning of the Red Sox’ 6-2 win, even that became a question mark.
The Sox already had manufactured a run in the inning out of a leadoff walk by Jackie Bradley Jr., who stole second, moved to third on a single by Mookie Betts, then trotted home on a sacrifice fly by Andrew Benintendi for a 3-0 lead.
But the gut punch came with two on, two out, and Xander Bogaerts at the plate.
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Gausman fell behind, 3 and 1, then left a fastball up and over the middle of the plate. Bogaerts whipped it over the Green Monster for a three-run homer.
Gausman barely had enough time to whip his neck back around after watching the homer sail out before he realized his night was over.Bogaerts was midway through his home run trot when Orioles manager Buck Showalter was out at the mound taking the ball from Gausman.“I don’t know if you can do that or you can’t,” Bogaerts said. “I wasn’t worried either. I kind of saw him as I was rounding third.”“I’m focused on touching the bases and getting my home run,” he said. “When I saw him, I didn’t think anything of it. But afterwards, the guys were like they had never seen stuff like that happen on a daily basis, so it was weird.”
It was Bogaerts’s sixth homer of the season. The Sox have homered in nine straight games, their longest such streak since 2016. Their 61 home runs through 44 games is tied for the most in franchise history.
Xander Bogaerts tosses his bat aside after crushing his three-run homer that gave the Red Sox a 6-0 lead.Xander Bogaerts tosses his bat aside after crushing his three-run homer that gave the Red Sox a 6-0 lead.Betts’s 3-for-4 day gave him multiple hits in five of his past six games. His two runs scored pushed him to a major league-leading 46. Bogaerts went 2 for 4 with the three-run homer. Hanley Ramirez went 2 for 4 with a run scored. Sandy Leon went 2 for 4.The Sox got an early jump on Gausman, who had given up first-inning runs in three of his first eight starts this season.Betts led off the first with a line-drive single to left, then three batters later J.D. Martinez got back to the business of mashing the life out of the ball.On a 1-and-1 count, Gausman left a splitter hanging over the middle of the plate and Martinez blasted it to straightaway center field for a two-run homer.
That made it four homers in five games for Martinez, eight in the past 15, and 13 total for the season. He left the game in the seventh-inning due to a stomach illness.“It’s impressive what he does,” Bogaerts said. “I’m not kidding you. I’ve got to be ready to hit right away. That’s the first time I saw him work an at-bat in that first inning. Normally he’s first-pitch-swing hit or home run oppo, whatever. But he worked an at-bat.”The Sox have won four straight against the Orioles this season and seven straight going back to last year.Not too long ago, the Orioles felt like a permanent thorn in the Sox’ side. But going back to last season, the Sox have outscored the O’s, 46-15. This season, they’ve pounded Baltimore, 26-7.Paired with nine innings of two-run ball from David Price, the Sox sent the Orioles to their 13th straight road loss, which matched the franchise record set when they started the 1988 season 0-21.Price was within one strike of throwing his first shutout since 2015 when Manny Machado belted a two-run homer off the National Car Rental sign atop the Monster. Still, Price held the O’s to two runs on five hits over nine innings, using just 95 pitches (69 strikes) and racking up eight strikeouts.“They’re a free-swinging team,” Price said. “You can go out there and do that [quick innings] or you can go out there and go three innings and give up a whole bunch of runs against a team like that. If you’re locating pitches, it’s a team that you can navigate through. And with the defensive plays that I had today, it makes everything a lot easier.”
The Sox improved to 15-4 this season when hitting multiple homers, but their effectiveness in all phases was the biggest takeaway for manager Alex Cora.“It was a fun game to watch,” Cora said. “It was good to see defensively what they did. Very clean [game]. What David did on the mound was amazing and the at-bats, it was probably one of the best games we have played the whole season.”
Mookie Betts heads out to right field as the sunset adds to the aura of Fenway Park.Mookie Betts heads out to right field as the sunset adds to the aura of Fenway Park.Julian Benbow can be reached at jbenbow@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter@julianbenbow.
A closer look at the 2018 Orioles shows a team that hadn’t won a road game since April 8. In fact, they were 3-17 away from Camden Yards. Beyond that, their pitching staff had the third-worst ERA in the American League. The starting rotation had combined for an 8-22 record and 5.44 ERA.
Their most reliable arm had been righthander Kevin Gausman, but by the fifth inning of the Red Sox’ 6-2 win, even that became a question mark.
The Sox already had manufactured a run in the inning out of a leadoff walk by Jackie Bradley Jr., who stole second, moved to third on a single by Mookie Betts, then trotted home on a sacrifice fly by Andrew Benintendi for a 3-0 lead.
But the gut punch came with two on, two out, and Xander Bogaerts at the plate.
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Gausman fell behind, 3 and 1, then left a fastball up and over the middle of the plate. Bogaerts whipped it over the Green Monster for a three-run homer.
Gausman barely had enough time to whip his neck back around after watching the homer sail out before he realized his night was over.Bogaerts was midway through his home run trot when Orioles manager Buck Showalter was out at the mound taking the ball from Gausman.“I don’t know if you can do that or you can’t,” Bogaerts said. “I wasn’t worried either. I kind of saw him as I was rounding third.”“I’m focused on touching the bases and getting my home run,” he said. “When I saw him, I didn’t think anything of it. But afterwards, the guys were like they had never seen stuff like that happen on a daily basis, so it was weird.”
It was Bogaerts’s sixth homer of the season. The Sox have homered in nine straight games, their longest such streak since 2016. Their 61 home runs through 44 games is tied for the most in franchise history.
Xander Bogaerts tosses his bat aside after crushing his three-run homer that gave the Red Sox a 6-0 lead.Xander Bogaerts tosses his bat aside after crushing his three-run homer that gave the Red Sox a 6-0 lead.Betts’s 3-for-4 day gave him multiple hits in five of his past six games. His two runs scored pushed him to a major league-leading 46. Bogaerts went 2 for 4 with the three-run homer. Hanley Ramirez went 2 for 4 with a run scored. Sandy Leon went 2 for 4.The Sox got an early jump on Gausman, who had given up first-inning runs in three of his first eight starts this season.Betts led off the first with a line-drive single to left, then three batters later J.D. Martinez got back to the business of mashing the life out of the ball.On a 1-and-1 count, Gausman left a splitter hanging over the middle of the plate and Martinez blasted it to straightaway center field for a two-run homer.
That made it four homers in five games for Martinez, eight in the past 15, and 13 total for the season. He left the game in the seventh-inning due to a stomach illness.“It’s impressive what he does,” Bogaerts said. “I’m not kidding you. I’ve got to be ready to hit right away. That’s the first time I saw him work an at-bat in that first inning. Normally he’s first-pitch-swing hit or home run oppo, whatever. But he worked an at-bat.”The Sox have won four straight against the Orioles this season and seven straight going back to last year.Not too long ago, the Orioles felt like a permanent thorn in the Sox’ side. But going back to last season, the Sox have outscored the O’s, 46-15. This season, they’ve pounded Baltimore, 26-7.Paired with nine innings of two-run ball from David Price, the Sox sent the Orioles to their 13th straight road loss, which matched the franchise record set when they started the 1988 season 0-21.Price was within one strike of throwing his first shutout since 2015 when Manny Machado belted a two-run homer off the National Car Rental sign atop the Monster. Still, Price held the O’s to two runs on five hits over nine innings, using just 95 pitches (69 strikes) and racking up eight strikeouts.“They’re a free-swinging team,” Price said. “You can go out there and do that [quick innings] or you can go out there and go three innings and give up a whole bunch of runs against a team like that. If you’re locating pitches, it’s a team that you can navigate through. And with the defensive plays that I had today, it makes everything a lot easier.”
The Sox improved to 15-4 this season when hitting multiple homers, but their effectiveness in all phases was the biggest takeaway for manager Alex Cora.“It was a fun game to watch,” Cora said. “It was good to see defensively what they did. Very clean [game]. What David did on the mound was amazing and the at-bats, it was probably one of the best games we have played the whole season.”
Mookie Betts heads out to right field as the sunset adds to the aura of Fenway Park.Mookie Betts heads out to right field as the sunset adds to the aura of Fenway Park.Julian Benbow can be reached at jbenbow@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter@julianbenbow.
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