Chris Sale was dominant Friday night, picking up his fourth win of the season as the lefty moves to 4-0, amid the Boston Red Sox picking up a 7-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles in the series opener and moving to 84-65 on the season.
Sale hurled five strong innings, surprisingly striking out just one batter but limiting the O’s to just a pair of hits. One was a solo blast over the monster from Austin Hays in the second inning, and the other was a leadoff single from Cedric Mullins in the first at-bat of the ballgame.
Garrett Whitlock, Hirokazu Sawamura, Matt Barnes, and Martin Perez hurled four scoreless innings out of the bullpen — but despite great pitching, the one-run outing was backed by seven runs from the Sox — mooting the seven runs scored.
Boston got on the board in the bottom of the second with a game-tying, RBI double from Jose Iglesias. They took the lead with a sac fly from Kiké Hernandez.
Bobby Dalbec slapped a solo homer just barely over the Green Monster in the fourth, and an RBI double from J.D. Martinez in the fifth made it 4-1. The Sox put it out of hand in the sixth, as with the bases loaded, Hunter Renfroe roped a bases-clearing, three-run double into left as Renfroe made it 7-1, and never looked back.
Out of town AL scores:
- The Blue Jays fell 7-3 to the Twins
- The Yankees are currently beating the Indians 8-0,
- The Mariners are currently beating the Royals, 5-2
- The Athletics are behind the Angels, 5-2, at the moment
(Photo by Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)