Following a much-needed offensive breakout, the Boston Red Sox are in position to sweep the Kansas City Royals.
With left-hander Connelly Early (3-2, 3.21 ERA) looking to continue his solid start to the season, the visiting Red Sox will try to record a three-game series sweep tonight against the scuffling Royals.
Boston had been held to three or fewer runs in nine straight games before winning 7-1 Tuesday night against the Royals. Jarren Duran’s three-run homer highlighted a four-run ninth inning as the Red Sox finished with 15 hits to follow a 3-1 victory in Monday’s series opener.
“This team has been putting some good at-bats together. We may not be producing a lot of runs right now, but we’re getting the opportunities,” Duran told NESN.
“We’ve just got to keep pushing the gas.”
Duran is 5-for-14 with four extra-base hits in the last four games. Willson Contreras had two hits and three RBI on Tuesday. He is 6-for-16 with seven RBI in the last four games for Boston, which is looking for its second three-game road series sweep of the season.
Only once in any of his nine starts this season has Early allowed more than three runs. In the last two games, he’s yielded two runs in 12 innings while striking out 14, with one walk.
Those runs came via two solo homers Friday in his team’s 3-2, 10-inning loss to the Atlanta Braves.
“I wanna go out there and compete every single time,” said Early, who has not faced the Royals in any of his 13 career starts.
Kansas City has 25 runs in losing eight of its last nine games. The Royals recorded just six hits in each of the first two games of this series.
Kansas City first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino is 2-for-22 in the past six games and is batting .194 for the season. Teammate Salvador Perez is 0-for-18 in his past six home contests.
“There’s got to be, I believe, a certain level of trust in your players,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “We don’t have 25 other major-league-quality players just floating around that you pick and put in a lineup.”
Tonight’s scheduled Royals starter, Michael Wacha (4-2, 2.83 ERA), allowed 10 runs over 10⅓ innings in back-to-back starts April 22 and 29. Since then, the veteran right-hander has yielded five runs — on three homers — in 20 innings while posting a 2-0 record.
Three of those runs came at St. Louis, via two homers, in six innings of Kansas City’s 5-4 loss in 11 innings Friday.
“There’s some positives, and there’s some stuff that (I’ve) got to get better,” said Wacha, who ranks among the major-league leaders with seven quality starts.
Wacha, 34, essentially began his mound resurgence by going 11-2 with a 3.32 ERA in 23 starts for the Red Sox in 2022. He is 3-1 with a 2.33 ERA in five career starts against them.
Contreras is 4-for-21 vs. Wacha, but two of those hits were home runs.
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