BALTIMORE – The Orioles are gaining supporters in Seattle, Toronto and New York.
Baltimore, bottom of the AL East, dealt the Boston Red Sox another blow in their bid to advance to the postseason, beating them 6-2 on Thursday.
Ryan Mountcastle hit a three-run homer in the third inning for Baltimore, which has 107 losses on the year but won two of three series games against Boston.
That was good news for the Yankees, Toronto and Seattle. The Red Sox were overtaken by the Mariners for the second wild-card spot in the American League playoffs.
Boston was two games behind New York, which has the first passage. In addition, the Red Sox beat the Blue Jays by one game, who faced the Yankees on the day.
“Obviously we wanted to win,” said Puerto Rican Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “We have talked about winning the series, and we have not managed to win the last two games.”
Puerto Rican Kiké Hernández hit a home run on the game’s first pitch for Boston, but little went well for the Red Sox after that. Mountcastle gave Baltimore the lead 3-1 with his 33rd home run of the season, and the Orioles added three more runs in the sixth inning.
Nick Pivetta (9-8) struck out all three of his opponents in the first inning but ended up conceding three runs and four hits in four 2/3 innings. He struck out eight and walked two.
Alexander Wells (2-3) allowed one run and three hits in six innings. He came into the game with a 7.61 ERA.
For the Red Sox, Puerto Rican Hernández 4-1 with one run scored and one produced. The Dominican Rafael Devers 4-1. The Mexican Alex Verdugo 4-0. The Cuban José Iglesias 3-0.
For the Orioles, the Dominicans Pedro Severino 4-1, Kelvin Gutiérrez 4-2 with a run scored.
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