Red-hot Red Sox enter break with win

BOSTON » Xander Bogaerts homered in his first at-bat a day after hitting a walk-off grand slam and drove in two runs, leading the Boston Red Sox past the Toronto Blue Jays 5-2 on Sunday to enter the All-Star break with their best record since 1949.

Brock Holt also drove in two runs for the AL East-leading Red Sox (68-30), who own the major league’s best record and have won 12 of their last 13 games.

Boston All-Star Mookie Betts went 0 for 3, lowering his major league-leading batting average to .359, and fellow-All Star J.D. Martinez enters the break with 29 homers and an MLB best 80 RBIs.

Teoscar Hernandez hit a tworun homer for the Blue Jays (4352). Toronto’s dropped seven of 10 and fell to 3-10 against the Red Sox this season.

Brandon Workman (2-0), the first of five relievers, struck out the only batter he faced in the fifth after starter Brian Johnson was pulled with the score tied.

All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel got the final three outs for his 30th save, his eighth straight season with 30 or more. Johnson gave up two runs in 4 2/3 innings.

Jackie Bradley Jr.’s RBI double against Marcus Stroman (27) pushed Boston ahead 3-2 in the fifth, and he scored on Bogaerts run-scoring grounder off Stroman’s foot.

Holt’s second RBI single made

it 5-2 an inning later.

Bogaerts, whose 10th-inning slam on Saturday gave Boston a 6-2 win, homered on the third pitch he saw, sending it completely out of Fenway Park over the Green Monster for his 16th of the season in the first. Holt’s RBI single made it 2-0 in the inning.

Hernandez’s shot went over the Monster in the third.

Stroman gave up four runs, three earned, on five hits in five innings.