When Adam Duvall stepped to the plate Thursday night with a chance to win the game with one swing of the bat, he struck out and the Red Sox rally fell short.
Given a second chance on Saturday, the new Red Sox outfielder didn’t miss his shot.
After Orioles left fielder Ryan McKenna dropped a routine fly ball that would have ended the game, Duvall crushed a two-run, walk-off home run into the Monster seats to finish off a wild 9-8 Red Sox win over the Orioles.
Duvall finished 4 for 5 and fell a single short of the cycle, crushing two homers with a triple and a double to pace the Red Sox comeback. Boston had trailed 7-1 in the third inning, but Duvall’s first two-run bomb into the third helped cap off a four-run inning that got the hometown club back into the game.
The ball was really flying at Fenway Park on Saturday, as the two sides combined for 14 extra-base hits, including seven home runs.
In addition to Duvall’s big hits, Alex Verdugo and Kiké Hernández both hit their first home runs of the season. For the Orioles, Ryan Mountcastle, Austin Hays and Cedric Mullins all took Chris Sale deep.
Though Sale put the Red Sox in a big hole early, the bullpen did its job keeping the Orioles at bay, giving the offense a chance to come back. From the fourth inning onwards Zack Kelly, Josh Winckowski, John Schreiber, Chris Martin and Kenley Jansen combined for six innings, six hits, one run, two walks and five strikeouts.
Jansen in particular did the job he was signed to do, throwing a scoreless top of the ninth to keep it an 8-7 in the bottom of the frame. His inning wasn’t flawless, allowing a single and a walk after getting two quick outs, but bounced back by getting Jorge Mateo to whiff on three straight pitches to end the threat.
The Orioles stole five bases after also swiping five on Opening Day. In doing so Baltimore became the first team in MLB history to go 10 for 10 on steals over the first two games of a season.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox haven’t been taking advantage of the new, larger bases. Where’s David Hamilton (organizational record 70 steals in 2022) when you need him?
(The answer is Triple-A Worcester, where he went 1-for-2 in stolen base attempts in their opening game on Friday.)
Though Rafael Devers struck out to lead off the bottom of the ninth, he did largely have another strong game to open the season. The All-Star third basemen went 3 for 5 with an opposite field double, but his biggest highlight came in the second inning after he made an impressive barehanded throw to Triston Casas just in time to nail Adley Rutschman, bailing out Sale and ending the inning.
Casas made a fantastic pick to secure the out, ending Rutschman’s streak of seven consecutive plate appearances reaching base to open the season.
After telling the Herald that he recognized he hadn’t gone to his fastball quickly enough when his changeup wasn’t executing on Opening Day, Kelly made the necessary adjustments on Saturday.
For the second game in a row Kelly was the first reliever Alex Cora called upon when his starting pitcher couldn’t go deep. This time, however, Kelly entered at the top of the inning, and went straight to his fastball for the first two pitches of the outing.
Oddly enough, it was his slider, a pitch he barely used in the majors last season, that got Rutschman to line out.
Baltimore Orioles second baseman Ramón Urías had a day to forget at the plate, striking out in each of his five plate appearances for a big ole’ Platinum Sombrero.
That’s not exactly the type of production you want to see out of your leadoff hitter, but Urías’ rough afternoon didn’t slow the Orioles down much. Baltimore still scored eight runs and collected 13 hits on the day, and Austin Hays picked up the slack himself by going 5 for 5 with a home run and two doubles.