Price goes all the way, leads Boston to win
Price took a shutout into the ninth inning and held Baltimore to five hits in his first complete game this season.
BOSTON — David Price took a shutout into the ninth inning and held Baltimore to five hits in his first complete game this season, leading the Boston Red Sox past the Orioles 6-2 on Thursday night.
J.D. Martinez hit a two-run homer in the first, and Xander Bogaerts homered with two on during a four-run fifth.
Price (4-4) struck out eight and didn’t walk a batter while winning consecutive starts for the first time this season. Andrew Susac led off the ninth with a double, the first Baltimore player to reach second base in the game. Manny Machado spoiled the shutout bid with a two-out homer, but Price finished off Baltimore on Jonathan Schoop’s pop-up.
In Miami, Justin Turner tied a career high with five RBIs and Kenta Maeda pitched eight sharp innings to help Los Angeles snap a six-game losing streak by beating the Marlins.
Turner, who broke his left wrist in spring training and made his season debut Tuesday, hit a three-run double for the Dodgers’ first hit in the third inning. He added a two-run double in the fourth and also singled in finishing 6 for 13 in the series (.462).
Maeda (3-3) allowed two hits and no walks in his longest outing of the season, and retired the final 17 batters he faced while throwing 96 pitches. Kenley Jansen gave up two hits in the ninth, but struck out the side to complete the Dodgers’ sixth shutout.
In St. Louis, Vince Velasquez pitched shutout ball into the seventh inning, and Carlos Santana and Pedro Florimon each hit home runs in the Philadelphia Phillies’ victory over the Cardinals.
Velasquez (4-4) gave up five hits in 6⅓ innings, struck out five and walked two in recording his third straight win. The Phillies won for the seventh time in eight games and improved to 17-2 against opponents outside of the NL East. At 25-16, the Phillies are nine games over .500 for the first time since they were 102-60 at the close of the 2011 season.
Odubel Herrera reached base three times to extend his on-base streak to 43 games, fifth-longest in franchise history. It is also the longest streak in the majors since Atlanta’s Freddie Freeman reached in 46 successive games in 2016. In Chicago, Welington Castillo hit a tiebreaking two-run single in Chicago’s four-run eighth, helping the White Sox beat Texas in the opener of a four-game series between two of the worst teams in the AL.
Yoan Moncada sparked the winning rally with a ground-rule double after Jose Leclerc (1-1) retired the first two batters of the inning. Moncada advanced on a passed ball and scored when Leclerc committed a throwing error on Yolmer Sanchez’s tapper back to the mound. The White Sox then used three consecutive walks to tie it at 2 before Rangers manager Jeff Banister pulled Leclerc in favor of Kevin Jepsen, who was greeted by Castillo’s hit that dropped in front of diving center fielder Delino DeShields. In Pittsburgh, Gregory Polanco led off the seventh inning with a double and scored the go-ahead run on an error, leading the Pirates over San Diego for their eighth win in nine games.
Polanco took third on Francisco Cervelli’s deep flyball, then came home when rookie third baseman Christian Villanueva misplayed Corey Dickerson’s two-out grounder.
In Toronto, Matt Olson hit a three-run home run, Khris Davis and Matt Chapman added tworun shots, and Oakland beat the Blue Jays.
Davis went 4 for 4 and scored three times as Oakland won for the second time in its past 13 games north of the border. Davis singled in the first, homered in the third, singled and scored in the fifth, came around to score after being hit by a pitch in the sixth, and singled in the eighth.