Burnes spoils Boston’s home opener
Ace right-hander allows 1 run in 7 innings; rookie Cowser collects 4 RBIs
BOSTON — Fenway Park, meet Corbin Burnes.
After spending the first six seasons of his MLB career in the National League, the Orioles’ righthander made his first career start in Boston on Tuesday and pitched seven dominant innings to lead Baltimore past the Red Sox, 7-1, in their American League East rival’s home opener. The sellout crowd of 36,093 quietly watched as Burnes allowed one run on two hits, the lone blemish a first-inning home run by Red Sox outfielder Tyler O’Neill.
Burnes shook off the early home run by retiring 19 of the next 21 hitters he faced, never allowing another base runner to make it past first base. Boston barely left the infield at all after that, managing a couple of weak fly balls to center field as the final 18 batters were retired in order. Burnes recorded the rest of his outs on ground balls (seven) and strikeouts (six). He needed just 90 pitches.
“You just have to realize that your job is to go out there and get outs,” Burnes said. “You’d love to get out there and punch two or three guys out every inning and kind of roll with the great stuff every time, but it doesn’t go that way. So, today
Radio:
Orioles at Red Sox when you got your B, B-minus stuff, you got to go out there and figure it out and grind through it.
“Eventually we started to find a little bit better feel of stuff, but your job is to go out and get outs. Doesn’t matter how you get those outs. So, today we’re able to kind of grind it out early and then get in a good rhythm.”
Outfielder Colton Cowser, also making his Fenway Park debut,
Corbin Burnes allowed one run in seven innings to lead the Orioles to a 7-1 win over the Red Sox in Boston on Tuesday.
powered the offense with two doubles and four RBIs. Drawing his third start of the season, Cowser entered Tuesday’s game with a quarter of the plate appearances accumulated by Baltimore’s everyday position players. Manager Brandon Hyde started the rookie in left field to stack the lineup with lefthanded hitters against Red Sox right-hander Brayan Bello, giving struggling outfielder Austin Hays (.077 batting average in 29 plate appearances) the day off.
Cowser responded with clutch hits in each of his first two at-bats. After O’Neill’s blast put Boston ahead 1-0 early, center fielder Cedric Mullins drew a two-out walk in the third and stole second base to get into scoring position with Cowser at the plate. Cowser worked the count full before taking a 97 mph fastball on the inner half and driving it off the Green Monster in left field for an RBI double that tied the game.
Two innings later, first baseman Ryan Mountcastle got on with a two-out infield single and Mullins drove a fly ball to left field that should have been an easy catch for Red Sox left fielder Jarren Duran. However, he missed the ball just as he crossed into the shadow cast by the second deck over the left field corner, allowing the Orioles to put runners on second and third for Cowser. He delivered once again, this time hitting a line drive into shallow left-center
Orioles center fielder Cedric Mullins, right, steals second base, beating the tag of Red Sox shortstop David Hamilton in the second inning Tuesday in Boston. to score both runs and put Baltimore ahead for good.
“I feel like this year [I am] going about it a lot better than I did last year,” said Cowser, who hit .115 in 26 games last season. “I think that was kind of one of the benefits of having those struggles last year was understanding and figuring out what my role was, and then this year, kind of understanding that and being the best that I can at doing that and staying ready whenever
I’m called upon.”
Though that was already more than enough run support for Burnes, the Orioles tacked on three more off the Boston bullpen. Shortstop Gunnar Henderson ended a personal 0-for12 skid with a one-out double in the seventh. He then made a heads-up steal of third base with reliever Josh Winckowski not paying attention and scored on an RBI single by Adley Rutschman one pitch later. Cowser then made it 5-1 with a sacrifice fly in the eighth.
The Orioles broke the game open in the ninth. Anthony Santander had an RBI knock after Henderson and Rutschman singled back-to-back to start the frame, and Mullins singled with the bases loaded to score Rutschman for a 7-1 lead.
Danny Coulombe struck out the side in the bottom half of the eighth and Jacob Webb pitched a perfect ninth to help the Orioles improve to 6-4. After dropping consecutive games to the Pittsburgh Pirates in walk-off fashion to close out their weekend series, the Orioles got their offense humming again and pulled back to .500 on the road trip with two games left to play.
“Great to see some of our guys get multiple-hit games, guys that have kind of been a little frustrated and overtrying a little bit at times,” Hyde said. “But to see them every get a couple hits today, it was nice to see.”