Cedric Mullins hit two home runs and drove in three runs, while Albert Suárez allowed one run and struck out a career-high eight batters over six innings. The Baltimore Orioles beat the Boston Red Sox 5-3 on Tuesday night.
Adley Rutschman added a two-run single for the Orioles, who won for only the second time in their last six games as they try to catch the New York Yankees, who are leading the AL East. The Orioles are now just half a game behind after the Yankees lost 5-0 to Kansas City on Tuesday.
“I think last time I threw a lot of fastballs. This time I was working more with the breaking ball,” said Suárez, who also defeated the Red Sox just over three weeks ago. “They were probably trying to get the fastball and I think that was what was working today.”
Triston Casas and Masataka Yoshida each hit an RBI double for Boston, which has lost seven of its last 11 games while trying to catch Minnesota for the AL’s third wild-card spot. The Red Sox are now four games behind the Twins, who won 10-5 against the Los Angeles Angels on Monday.
“At one point, we were the best offense in baseball. Whenever we faced a righty, it felt like we had a good chance to score runs,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said.
“We haven’t done that in the last month, month and a half. When we were hot, everyone was hitting the ball all over the place. It just happened that everyone is struggling at the same time.”
Boston’s Tyler O’Neill went 0 for 3 with three strikeouts after hitting two home runs in a win on Monday.
With Gunnar Henderson on first base after a walk in the third inning, Mullins hit a cutter from Kutter Crawford (8-14) deep into the right-field seats to make it 3-0. This was his fifth career multi-homer game, with the last one being against Toronto on June 19, 2021.
After his second-worst start of the season where he gave up six runs in 4 1/3 innings last Wednesday against the White Sox, the 34-year-old Suárez (8-5) gave up four hits and two walks.
“Really good changeups. You needed it with that left-handed hitting lineup,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “A team that he had faced not that long ago and pitched really well against, you know that they were going to make adjustments.”
