Eduardos overcome O’s
Rodriguez, Nunez shine as Sox roll
For most of the first inning last night, Baltimore Orioles starter Chris Tillman either missed the plate badly or served up tee-ballquality strikes.
When a pitcher does that, anything but a crooked number on the scoreboard has to be considered a waste.
Eduardo Nunez, however, took full advantage. The Red Sox second baseman crushed one over the Monster and out of Fenway Park for a three-run homer to set the table for a 7-3 win.
The victory improves the Sox to 11-2 on the season, matching their franchise-best start in 1918. They had no trouble scoring runs despite Hanley Ramirez missing the game due to a right wrist contusion suffered Thursday against the New York Yankees.
Each Sox batter reached base at least once, and Rafael Devers broke out of a mini-slump with a 3-for-5 night.
Sox starter Eduardo Rodriguez (1-0, 3.72 ERA) was solid in his second appearance of the season. He had a sloppy first inning when Adam Jones had a sacrifice fly to left that plated Trey Mancini. But Rodriguez limited the damage and struck out the side in the second.
He lasted six innings and allowed one earned run and five hits with eight strikeouts and two walks. He closed his night by striking out Chris Davis for the third time to a rousing ovation from the Fenway crowd.
“His cutter was a lot better (than his first start last Saturday). Elevated fastball, that should be a weapon for him,” Sox manager Alex Cora said of Rodriguez. “(It’s) something he didn’t use his last one. … He keeps learning, but you can see the stuff is there. He’s electric.”
Tillman was wild from the opening pitch, walking Mookie Betts to start the first. After Andrew Benintendi grounded back to Tillman for the first out, Mitch Moreland, starting in place of Ramirez, singled to center. J.D. Martinez hit a sac fly to center to score Betts, and Devers followed with a double to left to move Moreland to third.
Nunez, who joked earlier in the day that he had yet to get a hit off a fastball all season, then brought everyone home with his blast off Tillman to give the Sox a 4-1 lead.
Tzu-Wei Lin and Betts both doubled in the second to push the lead to 5-1, but Tillman avoided more trouble when Martinez flied out to right with runners on first and third.
The opportunities continued for the Sox in the third, as Tillman loaded the bases and was mercifully pulled. But reliever Pedro Araujo only allowed one run off a passed ball that scored Devers.
Araujo kept the Sox at bay for his two innings of work, but they added a seventh run in the sixth when Moreland sprinted in from third on a wild pitch by Mike Wright Jr.
Heath Hembree came on in the seventh for the Sox and Manny Machado promptly pulled the Orioles to within 7-3 with a line-drive double to center.
The Orioles got no closer, as Joe Kelly and Matt Barnes closed things out.
Betts, who threw out Jones trying to stretch a single into a double in the fourth inning, had a nonchalant response to a question about the team’s hot start.
“We’re just taking it one game at a time,” Betts said. “It doesn’t even seem like we’re 11-2. It just seems like each day is a new day and new game.”