Willson Contreras hit a two-run home run and Connelly Early pitched into the seventh inning as the Boston Red Sox won in their first game after a surprising weekend managerial change, beating the host Baltimore Orioles 5-3 on Sunday afternoon.
Chad Tracy was in the Boston dugout as interim manager after the firing of Alex Cora following the game a day earlier. The Red Sox won their second game in a row, improving to 11-17.
Cora’s firing was announced hours after the Red Sox won 17-1 on Saturday. Several other members of the coaching staff also were dismissed.
Ceddanne Rafaela recorded an RBI triple and a double for two of Boston’s seven hits as the Red Sox won consecutive games for the first time since April 15 and 17. They will seek their first three-game winning streak of the season when they play Monday night at the Toronto Blue Jays.
Early (2-1) worked 6 2/3 innings, surrendering two runs on four hits with a season-low one walk. He struck out four.
Aroldis Chapman, the third Boston reliever used, pitched the ninth for his fifth save.
Gunnar Henderson and Samuel Basallo, who each had two hits, smacked solo home runs for the Orioles. Henderson added a second RBI on a single. Baltimore starter Kyle Bradish (1-3) gave up three runs on four hits in five innings.
Boston scored first with a three-run fifth inning, with Andruw Monasterio’s single driving in the first run before Contreras’ two-run shot to left-center with two outs for his sixth long ball of the season.
Basallo homered in the fifth before Rafaela tripled in a run in the sixth and then scored on Marcelo Mayer’s single.
Orioles reliever Grant Wolfram was charged with both runs in the sixth inning without recording an out.
Henderson knocked in the next two runs. He homered for the ninth time this year in the sixth and plated another run with a two-out single in the eighth.
–Field Level Media
