Nathaniel Lowe hit a sacrifice fly to right field that drove in Chase DeLauter in the ninth inning and the visiting Cleveland Guardians held on to beat the Boston Red Sox 3-2 Tuesday in the first game of a three-game series.
Boston’s Erik Miller (4-2) walked one and allowed two hits in the ninth.
Hunter Gaddis (5-3) got the win despite allowing a game-tying home run to Mickey Gasper in the eighth. Cade Smith pitched a scoreless ninth to record his 40th save. The victory extended Cleveland’s winning streak to six games as it maintained its one-game lead over the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central.
Parker Messick held Boston to one run on five hits in five innings. He struck out five and walked one. Messick has allowed three runs or fewer in each of his last 14 starts.
Payton Tolle started for the Red Sox (84-73) and gave up two runs on eight hits in 5 2/3 innings. He walked two and struck out five.
Adley Rutschman had three hits for the Red Sox, who had eight hits in the game.
Cleveland’s Angel Martinez went 3-for-4 and scored a run. The Guardians (82-75) received two hits from DeLauter, who reached in the ninth when Miller hit him with a pitch.
The Guardians went 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position and stranded 15.
The Guardians took a 2-0 lead in the second. Martinez doubled and made it 1-0 when he scored on David Fry’s single. Fry doubled the lead by scoring when Brayan Rocchio grounded into a 4-6-3 double play.
Boston trimmed its deficit to 2-1 in the second. Rutschman led off with a double, moved to third on Caleb Durbin’s groundout to second and scored on Andrew Monasterio’s groundout to shortstop.
Gasper’s home run, his 10th of the year, tied the game leading off the eighth.
Boston stranded the tying run on second in the ninth as Smith retired Nick Sogard on a grounder to second.
–Field Level Media
