BOSTON—One night after his elevation to the second spot in the batting order, Cedric Mullins hit two home runs for the first time in more than three years in the Orioles’ 5-3 win over the Boston Red Sox before 30,898 at Fenway Park on Tuesday night.
Behind a strong six-inning start by Albert Suárez and Mullins’ homers, the Orioles (83-63) moved back to within a ½ game of the New York Yankees in the American League East after New York’s 5-0 loss to Kansas City.
Mullins hit his 16th home run with one out in the first off Kutter Crawford (8-14) The ball tucked around the Pesky Pole in short right field.
In the third, Gunnar Henderson walked, and Mullins homered to right. It was the fifth multi-home run game of his career, and the first since June 19th, 2021. The first four two-homer games came at Oriole Park.
The Orioles had two other good chances to score against Crawford. Jackson Holliday and James McCann began the fifth with singles. Henderson struck out, Mullins grounded back to Crawford and Santander struck out, leaving runners at first and third.
Colton Cowser and Coby Mayo singled with two outs in the sixth. Wilyer Abreu made an excellent diving catch on Holliday’s line drive to end the inning.
Adley Rutschman’s two-out, bases-loaded single in the seventh scored Henderson and Santander to put the Orioles ahead, 5-1.
Suárez struck out a career-high eight batters in six innings. He allowed one run on four hits and walked one.
Boston (73-72) scored its run in the fourth on back-to-back doubles by Connor Wong and Triston Casas.
Suárez (8-5) threw a season-high 101 pitches and retired his last seven batters. He struck out Tyler O’Neill, who homered twice on Monday night, three times.
Cionel Pérez pitched a spotless seventh and allowed Jarren Duran’s leadoff single in the eighth before Rafael Devers flied to left. Yennier Cano struck out Rob Refsnyder, who also homered twice on Monday. O’Neill walked and Masataka Yoshida doubled to score Duran. O’Neill scored on Cano’s balk before Wong was called out on strikes, ending the eighth with the Orioles ahead, 5-3.
Seranthony Domínguez pitched a scoreless ninth for his 10th save, ninth as an Oriole.