For the first time in nearly two weeks, the Red Sox have won two consecutive games following a 3-1 victory over the Orioles on Thursday night.
Nathan Eovaldi made his sixth start of the season for Boston, and he put together a strong outing after getting rocked for eight runs in his last time out against the Yankees.
Working a season-best seven innings against Baltimore on Thursday, the right-hander yielded just one run while scattering five hits and one walk to go along with six strikeouts on the night.
That lone O’s tally came in Eovaldi’s final inning of work when the hurler served up a leadoff homer to Pat Valaika to make it a 3-1 contest at the time.
Other than that one blip though, Eovaldi settled down after a rather rocky top half of the first in which he escaped a bases loaded jam by retiring 18 of the last 21 hitters he faced from the middle of the second up until the end of the seventh, which is the point where his outing came to a close.
Finishing with a final pitch count of 97 (64 strikes), the 30-year-old fireballer turned to his four-seam and cut fastball 68% of the time he was on the mound Thursday, inducing six swings-and-misses with the combination of pitches while topping out at 99.2 mph with his heater.
Able to pick up his second winning decision and lower his ERA on the season down to 4.98, Eovaldi will look to build off this impressive performance in his next time out, which should come against the Blue Jays in Buffalo on Wednesday.
In relief of Eovaldi, Ryan Brasier got the first call out of the Red Sox bullpen for the bottom of the eighth, and he fanned a pair in a quick, painless, and scoreless frame of work.
From there, Phillips Valdez was dispatched in the ninth in what had turned out to be a runaway for Boston, and the right-hander tossed a 1-2-3 inning to lock down the 7-1 win for his side.
On the other side of things, the Red Sox lineup was matched up against a fairly familiar foe in Orioles right-hander Asher Wojciechowski, someone who had given the Sox trouble in the past.
This time around, Wojciechowski was not quite as effective, and the Boston bats put that to the test right away in their half of the second.
There, a Christian Vazquez leadoff single that likely could have been caught was followed by Kevin Pillar drawing a six-pitch walk.
That sequence brought Jose Peraza to the plate with one out and a runner in scoring position, and the second baseman capitalized fully on the scoring chance by driving in Vazquez on a blooper of an RBI single to shallow center field.
Alex Verdugo doubled his side’s early lead with a groundout to second that brought in Pillar from third, and just like that, the Red Sox were up 2-0.
An inning later, Xander Bogaerts added on to that lead by taking Wojciechowski 366 feet deep to left field off a 1-2, 84 mph changeup near his hands for his fifth long ball of the season.
Fast forward all the way to the ninth, and Bogaerts struck again, this time ripping an RBI single off Miguel Castro to drive in Verdugo from third and make it a 3-1 contest.
With runners at first and second now, Mitch Moreland followed suit by putting this one to bed with a 402-foot three-run homer to deep center field off Castro.
Moreland’s team-leading seventh big fly of the year, as well as the Red Sox’ first three-run home run, put Boston up 7-1, which would go on to be Thursday’s final score.
Some notes and observations from this victory:
From MassLive.com’s Christopher Smith:
From The Boston Globe’s Pete Abraham:
Alex Verdugo’s streak of recording an extra-base hit may have ended at seven consecutive games, but he still has an 11-game hitting streak going.
Xander Bogaerts is 5-for-his-last-11 at the plate over his last three games.
The Red Sox’ 4-5-6 hitters (Bogaerts, Moreland, Vazquez) went a combined 7-for-14 with two homers and five RBI.
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Next up for the Red Sox, it’s the second game of this four-game weekend set against the Orioles on Friday night.
Right-hander Colten Brewer will serve as the opener for Boston, while left-hander John Means will get the traditional start for Baltimore.
Brewer opened for the Sox against the Yankees back on August 14 and he allowed two runs over 2 2/3 innings in that outing.
Means, meanwhile, owns a 10.57 ERA and 6.54 FIP through his first three starts and 7 2/3 innings pitched this season.
First pitch Friday is scheduled for 7:35 p.m. eastern time on NESN and WEEI. Red Sox looking for their third straight win.
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