Red Sox erupt for eight runs, snap losing streak against Braves

It hasn’t happened often this season, but on Wednesday night the Red Sox broke through offensively.

Boston erupted for six runs in the fourth inning against Bryce Elder and the Braves en route to an emphatic 8-0 victory at Fenway Park.

The win snapped Boston’s four-game losing streak and positioned the Red Sox to potentially take the series Thursday afternoon against an old friend in Chris Sale.

The six-run fourth inning marked Boston’s second-highest scoring inning of the season, trailing only the club’s 10-run ninth inning April 25 in Baltimore, Alex Cora’s final game as manager.

It also represented the most explosive offensive inning of Chad Tracy’s tenure as interim manager.

Boston’s breakout inning started with Masataka Yoshida, who jumped on the first pitch of the frame for a leadoff single, the first of his two hits during the 10-batter inning.

After Marcelo Mayer grounded out and a sacrifice bunt moved a runner into scoring position, Nick Sogard hit what looked like a routine ground ball that Matt Olson appeared poised to handle himself at first base. 

Instead, the ball took an awkward hop, skipped past Olson, and allowed Sogard to reach safely while Yoshida raced home with the game’s first run. Olson was charged with a fielding error on the play.

From there, the inning snowballed on Atlanta.

The Red Sox rattled off four consecutive singles from Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, who attacked the first pitch he saw, and Wilyer Abreu as Boston suddenly broke the game wide open.

“I actually thought we took some good at-bats in the first three innings and had some opportunities even in the early part of the game, but to capitalize in the fourth over and over again, and just keep building, building, and building with hit after hit was really good,” Tracy said after the game.

It marked the first time the Red Sox scored at least six runs in a single inning at Fenway Park since Sept. 14, 2025, and continued one of Boston’s most complete offensive innings of the season.

The Braves were forced to go to their bullpen in the middle of Boston’s explosive fourth inning, pulling Elder between singles from Rafaela and Abreu.

Elder lasted just 3 1/3 innings and was tagged for six runs, five earned, on nine hits while walking one and striking out only one batter. The right-hander threw 59 pitches, 41 for strikes, in one of his roughest outings of the season.

The Braves' hurler also committed a costly throwing error in the second inning when his errant toss turned Sogard’s infield single into a trip to third base. It was one of three Atlanta errors on the night as the Braves played an uncharacteristically sloppy game defensively.

Wednesday’s outing also snapped a remarkable stretch of consistency for Elder.