After spotting the Kansas City Royals a 5-1 lead in the second inning, the Red Sox came storming back with four homers and overtook the Royals, 6-5 for their fourth straight win.
The Sox got two homers from Hunter Renfroe and one each from Kike Hernandez and Bobby Dalbec, giving the team eight in its last two games.
The Sox overcame another shaky outing by Garrett Richards, who gave up three runs in the first and two more in the second before settling down. Three Red Sox relievers provided 3.1 innings of scoreless ball following Richards.
WHO: Red Sox (47-31) vs. Kansas City Royals ( )
WHEN: 7:10 p.m.
WHERE: Fenway Park
SEASON SERIES TO DATE: KC 2-1
STARTING PITCHERS: RHP Garrett Richards (4-4, 4.74) vs. LHP Danny Duffy (4-3, 1.81)
TV/RADIO: NESN; WEEI-FM 93.7 FM
LINEUPS
ROYALS
Merrifleld 2B
Soler RF
Santana 1B
Perez C
O'Hearn DH
Rivera 3B
Dozier LF
Taylor CF
Lopez 2B
RED SOX
Hernandez CF
Devers 3B
Martinez DH
Bogaerts SS
Renfroe RF
Vazquez C
Dalbec 1B
Gonzalez LF
Chavis 2B
IN-GAME OBSERVATIONS:
T8: That's Josh Taylor's 23rd consecutive scoreless outing, four off the club record held by Koji Uehara.
B6: For the first time tonight, the Red Sox have the lead. Renfroe hits his second homer of the night, his 13th multi-homer game of his career. The Sox have hit eight homers in the last 14 innings.
T6: That's all for Richards, who tossed 3.2 innings of scoreless relief -- after he allowed five runs in the first two innings. Maybe something to build on. Hirkazu Sawamura on.
B5: Artfully turned double play between Whit Merrifield and Nicky Lopez gets KC out of the inning in the bottom of the fifth.
B4: Red Sox have come all the way back from being down 5-1. Run-scoring single by Michael Chavis through the shortstop hole, scoring Dalbec with the tying run.
B4; Duffy hangs a changeup out over the middle of the plate and with Xander Bogaerts on second, Hunter Renfroe wallops it far up in the center field bleachers for homer No. 10.
T4: Richards has settled in some since the last homer he allowed in the second, retiring eight of the last 10 hitters, with the only hits off him the result of ground ball singles.
B2: Bobby Dalbec snaps an 0-for-15 with a rocket over everything in left for his 10th of the season and it's Home Run Debry on a hot night at Fenway. Why you can't trust home run distances: StatCast had that at 397 feet, which is laughably low.
T2: And the hits -- and homers -- keep on coming. Whit Merrifield, just to the left of the flagpole in CF, for the third homer of the night off Richards
T2: Another homer off Richards -- Michael Taylor connects on a liner into the Sox bullpen, negating the homer by Hernandez.
B1: For second straight game, Kike Hernandez leads off the first with a homer into the Monster Seats. Eighth of his career, third this season.
T1: Well, it's not starting well for Garrett Richards. After a couple of singles to open the inning, Carlos Santana takes him over the bullpen for a three-run shot.
WHAT'S UP: After a weekend sweep of the Yankees, the Red Sox are season-high 16 games over .500...The Sox are 4-2 in the last six games and 15-10 in the month of June....Red Sox pitchers have allowed just four earned runs in their last 36.2 innings...Since allowing 18 runs to the Blue Jays on June 13, the Sox have a 3.21 ERA...They're averaging 1.00 homers per nine innings, the lowest rate of any American League team....Over the last four starts, no Red Sox starter has allowed more than two earned runs....The Sox are 23-17 at home, and after the opening series sweep by Baltimore, 23-14 at Fenway...The Sox have 25 comeback wins, the most in the majors...The Sox are 22-12 in games decided by one or two runs, the second-best mark in MLB behind only Cleveland, which is (21-11)...The Sox are 11-4 in their last 15 games against the Royals....Four Red Sox players have advance to Phase 2 in the All-Star voting -- Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, J.D. Martinez and Alex Verdugo. Voting began today at noon and concludes Thursday at 2 p.m....Devers is second in extra-base hits (43) and RBI (64)...Devers and Bogaerts are tied for the MLB lead with 23 doubles each...Bogaerts leads AL shortstops in average, slugging percentage, OPS, doubles, hits and extra-base hits.....Devers leads AL third basemen in hits, runs, extra-base hits, doubles, homers, RBI, average, slugging percentage, OPS, total bases...Devers is also one of two MLB players this year to homer on pitches in excess of 100 mph twice....Red Sox relievers are fourth in the AL and eighth in MLB...Hunter Renfroe leads MLB with 11 outfield assists, including six in June and three in his last six games....Since the start of 2019, he leads the majors with 25 outfield assists...Josh Taylor has strung together 22 straight scoreless appearances...Bogaerts has reached base in the last 22 games while Martinez has a 16-game streak...Garrett Richards has allowed four earned runs in each of his last three starts after doing so just once in his previous eight starts......He's winless over his last six starts, the third-longest winless streak of his career.....Carlos Santana is 2-for-6 against Richards in his career and Salvador Perez is 2-for-11....Bobby Dalbec is 0-for-15....Christian Vazquez has a four-game hitting streak...Marwin Gonzalez is 11-for-25 lifetime against Danny Duffy while Martinez is 6-for-27 with two homers in his career.
NOTES:
* Alex Verdugo was given the night off by Alex Cora. Verdugo is scuffling a bit, going just 4-for-27 (.148) in his last seven games.
* Cora felt confident that Garrett Richards, who has struggled mightily to adapt to MLB's enhance enforcement on substances on the ball, will find himself tonight: "He's been working on it,'' said Cora. "He feels like he's in a good place. Going into this one, I believe from his standpoint, he feels comfortable where he's at. I think the mechanical adjustment is going to help him. It's going to keep him above the rubber and he's not rushing his delivery. Let's see where it takes him.''
* Cora noted that the Royals are aggressive on the bases and feels there's a way counteract that. "I think it's important to get the lead,'' he said. "Teams like that, you kind of slow them down when you have the lead. If we can do that on a nightly basis, it's good -- especially against teams like the Rays, Houston and the Royals who put the ball in play and are aggressive. When you get ahead, it tends to slow them down.''
* Cora saluted Hunter Renfroe for establishing himself as more of an everyday player, rather than a platoon option as he'd been for most of his career. "We gave him some good matchups,'' Cora said, "but he's created matchups for himself. It's all about him. He started hitting the ball the other way and he's been more selective lately. Yeah, he had power, we envisioned that. But he's becoming a good hitter - hanging in there against righties, going the other way, taking pitches when he has to. He's earned his playing time, he's earned his spot in the lineup. He's been amazing for us.''
* Kevin Plawecki (IL, hamstring) is improving. Plawecki caught Chris Sale's live BP Saturday. Christian Arroyo is also progressing from a knee contusion. Cora indicated both should be back with the team as soon, or soon after, they're eligible.