The Boston Red Sox found themselves in an early hole against the Baltimore Orioles when the Orioles plated two runs in the third inning to make the score 3-1.
Orioles starter Tomoyuki Sugano had thrown five shutout innings against Boston on Wednesday, and the Red Sox once again struggled with the righty on Monday. Outside of Roman Anthony’s lead-off home run, the offense couldn’t get much going until the fifth inning.
Connor Wong and Roman Anthony each hit singles to begin the inning. After Alex Bregman flew out, Jarren Duran came to the plate with two runners on. The lefty jumped on a 1-0 splitter over the plate and deposited it in the center field seats. The 407-foot blast would have been a home run in 15 of 30 major league stadiums.
“I guess it kinda helped in our favor that we faced [Sugano] so recently, and we were able to kinda make an adjustment and come back and face him again. Credit to our hitting staff, they’re always on us about making good adjustments, and we made some good ones tonight,” Duran said.
Duran had been scuffling in August. Going into Monday’s game, Duran was hitting just .211 in August with a .669 OPS. The home run was his 13th of the season, and his first since August 4.
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The Red Sox play three more games with the Orioles over the next three days. They won’t have the luxury of facing a starter they faced in the previous series, though they likely don’t want to run into Trevor Rogers again.
Featured image via Brian Fluharty/Imagn Images
