Boston Red Sox Blown Out by San Diego Padres 11-1

By Zachary McMahon –

The Boston Red Sox played the second game of the weekend series against the San Diego Padres on Saturday Afternoon. The Padres blew out the Sox on Friday night after a nine-run fifth inning in a 9-2 victory. This was the first tine that the Padres have come to Fenway Park since Independence Day weekend in 2013, where in one of the games Jonny Gomes hit a towering walk-off homer into the Green Monster in the championship season for the Sox.

Ceddane Rafaela started the second straight game for the Sox at shortstop, while Enmanuel Valdez was at second base, after taking the night off on Friday. 

Tanner Houck went for the Sox, and had a rough outing as he went 4 ⅓ innings where he allowed nine hits and seven earned runs. On the other side, Michael King had a good outing for the Padres as he went sic innings, allowed five hits, one earned run, one walk, and struck out six. 

Leading up to the fifth inning, the Padres hit homers in back-to-back innings with a two-run homer from Manny Machado in the third, and a solo shot over the Green Monster by Jackson Merrill in the fourth. 

The Padres went off for six runs in the fifth inning, which featured Machado’s second homer, and catcher Brett Sullivan hit a two-run homer to end the scoring for San Diego. After a lineout by Donovan Solano, Houck was taken out for Bailey Horn for his major league debut, who would get his first major league strikeout to no. 9 hitter Bryce Johnson, as all nine batters went up in the inning, which started with a walk to Luis Arraez.

Jarren Duran was able to break the shutout with a solo homer to right field as it became 10-1. Zack Kelly allowed an unearned run in the eighth, after Jake Cronenworth reached on an error by Rafael Devers, which was one of three in the game for the Sox. After that, Merrill would bring Cronenworth home for his second RBI of the game. 

Connor Wong, who extended his hit streak to 15 games with a single in the fifth, moved to first base after Dominic Smith came into the pitcher’s mound, as he allowed one hit from the Padres. Wong’s 15 game hitting streak is the first for a Sox catcher to have a hitting streak of 15 or more games since Victor Martinez did it for 25 games in the 2009 season. 

Meanwhile, Jurickson Profar extended a long streak of his own as he extended his hit streak to 12 games, and then had reached safely in the last 20 games, as he pushes for a National League All-Star selection. 

Also, former Red Sox relief pitcher Austin Davis pitched in his second straight game since being called up from Triple-A El Paso on Friday. Davis made 69 pitching appearances (three starts in 2022) for the Sox between 2021-2022, as the 2022 season had the most games that he pitched with 50, and he had a 2-1 record that season, as that was his only season with multiple wins. Before this series, Davis had not pitched in the major leagues since he appeared in two games for the Twins after they claimed him on waivers from the Sox on August 31, 2022 and then was DFA’d nine days later on Sept. 8, where he elected free agency two days later. 

The Sox will look to avoid being swept by the Padres as they stay in the hunt for the American League Wild Card race when they play the series finale on Sunday at 1:35. Knuckleballer Matt Waldron, who was mentored by the late Sox legend Tim Wakefield, will be going up against Josh Winckowski on NESN/NESN360.