FINAL: Red Sox 9, Royals 5 - Triston Casas homers; Tanner Houck goes five innings

WHO: Red Sox (69-66) at Royals (42-94) 
WHEN: 7:10 p.m. 
WHERE: Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City. 
SERIES TO DATE: Boston leads, 3-2. 
STARTING PITCHERS: RHP Alec Marsh (0-7, 5.47 ERA) vs. RHP Tanner Houck (3-8, 4.93 ERA) 
TV/RADIO: NESN, WEEI-FM 93.7

LIVE BOX

LINEUP

RED SOX 

Verdugo RF
Devers 3B 
Turner DH 
Casas 1B
Duvall CF
Yoshida LF 
Story SS
McGuire C
Valdez 2B
Houck SP 

ROYALS

Garcia 3B 
Witt Jr. SS
Melendez LF 
Perez 1B
Fermin C
Massey 2B
Waters CF 
Beaty DH 
Velázquez LF 
Marsh SP 

PRE-GAME NOTES 

LHP Brennan Bernardino rejoined the Red Sox in Kansas City today and will be activated for tomorrow's series finale.

RHP Tanner Houck is a full go (90-95 pitches) after facing a limit in his first two starts back from a facial fracture suffered in June. 

"I think he's done a good job," Alex Cora said pre-game. "He's been competing at this level after what happened, that's good enough. Like I've been saying all along, he's one of our best ... I like him as a starter. We'll see what the future holds." 

WHAT'S UP 

The Red Sox are on a season-high-tying 5-game losing streak (also 6/24-29)...They’ve lost 6 of their last 7 games since 8/25...The Sox are 13-19 in their last 32 games, beginning 7/29, after going an MLB-best 16-5 from 6/30-7/28....At 69-66 (.511), Boston is tied with Cincinnati for MLB’s 15th-best record...The Red Sox have homered in 19 of their last 20 games, including in 18 straight from 8/11-29 (32 total HR)...Boston has hit 26 HR in their last 15 games since 8/17, 3rd-most in the AL over that span (NYY-31, SEA-27)....Their 18-game streak was 4th-longest in franchise history (previous: 19 games, 8-7-30/2019)....The Sox have homered in 27 of their last 29 games since 8/1, after homering in only 16 of their previous 28...In his last 11 games, Adam Duvall has hit .439 (18-for-41) with a 1.098 SLG, 1.587 OPS, 6 doubles, 7 HR, 9 runs scored and 15 RBI...He leads AL players during that span in HR, XBH, SLG, and OPS, is tied for 1st in hits, doubles, and RBI, and ranks 2nd in AVG (min. 40 AB)...Duvall’s 13 XBH from 8/21-30 are the most by an AL player in any 10-game span this season...He’s the 3rd Red Sox player to hit a HR in 7 games of a single-season 9-game span....He was named AL Player of the Week on Monday, the 2nd time in his career he’s won the award (also 4/3)... Kenley Jansen has converted each of his last 20 save opportunities since 5/20, MLB’s 2nd-longest active streak behind TOR’s Jordan Romano (21)....Since 6/9, Chris Martin has allowed only 1 run over his last 30 outings (26.2 IP)...He leads MLB with a 0.34 ERA in that span (min. 20.0 IP)...Alex Cora (431 wins) is 1 victory shy of matching John Farrell (432) for 6th place on the Red Sox’ all-time managerial wins list....The only people to manage 500+ Red Sox games and post a better winning percentage than Cora’s .550 mark are Don Zimmer (.575) and Terry Francona (.574)....RHP Tanner Houck is making his 1st career appearance vs. KC; has faced every other AL team at least once....In his last 4 starts, has posted a 3.32 ERA and .225 opponent AVG (19.0 IP, 7 R, 16 H)...Began the season 3-0 in his first 4 starts, but is 0-8 in his last 11...Has pitched at least 5.0 innings in 11 of his 15 starts this season...Threw exactly 4.0 innings in each of his other 4 outings....Opponents have hit .197 against him the 1st time through the order this season, .303 the 2nd time, and .231 the 3rd and 4th time...Has allowed only 1 HR to his last 348 RHH faced (Gleyber Torres on 6/10/23)...Since the start of 2022, owns MLB’s lowest opponent SLG vs. RHH (.253; min. 300 PA)....Has allowed 3 ER or fewer in 31 of his 35 career starts...