Carlos Narvaez and Alex Bregman homered in support of Dustin May, who twirled six shutout innings to pace the visiting Boston Red Sox to a 14-1 win over the Houston Astros on Tuesday.
After scoring four runs with two outs in the top of the seventh inning in their series-opening loss on Monday, the Red Sox exploded for five runs with two outs in the sixth to break open a close game. Narvaez clubbed his 10th homer off Astros reliever Shawn Dubin with Masataka Yoshida and Ceddanne Rafaela on base to extend the lead to 5-0.
Two batters later, Bregman homered for the second time in the series and chased home Roman Anthony with his 16th home run.
Narvaez drilled a 2-1 sweeper 383 feet to left field after Rafaela greeted Dubin with a single to left. Bregman took Dubin the opposite way off the right-field foul pole to give Boston a 7-0 lead.
Anthony socked his fourth homer of the season 428 feet to straightaway center in a four-run eighth. Like Bregman, Anthony also homered in the series opener.
The Red Sox carved out a 2-0 lead against Astros right-hander Spencer Arrighetti (1-3), who made his second start following a four-month stint on the injured list with a fractured thumb. While he allowed just one hit over his five innings of work, Arrighetti labored with his control.
Arrighetti walked Anthony and Bregman to load the bases with no outs in the third. He plunked Trevor Story with a pitch to force home Narvaez before Yoshida followed with a sacrifice fly.
Arrighetti issued five walks against three strikeouts. He surrendered two earned runs.
May (7-8) worked around traffic in his first three innings of work, stranding four runners, including two in scoring position. He induced Carlos Correa to ground into a double play to erase Jeremy Pena, who opened the third with a single. May closed that frame by getting Jesus Sanchez to lift an infield popup, keying a run where he retired 10 of the final 12 batters he faced.
May notched his first victory since being acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers at the trade deadline. He allowed five hits and issued one walk while recording eight strikeouts.
Jeremy Pena went 3-for-5 for Houston and improved his batting average to .318.
–Field Level Media
