Opening night blowout: O's lose big at Boston

In search of their ninth opening day win in the last 10 years, a couple of bad innings happened to the Orioles tonight. A couple of really, really bad innings. They got bombed 13-2 at Fenway Park in the 2020 season opener.

Instead of another opening day win - and the club was 15-4 its previous 19 openers coming in - the Orioles have lost back-to-back opening day games for the first time since 2007 and 2008.

Milone-Throws-Black-Front-Opener-Sidebar.jpgLefty Tommy Milone was making his first career opening day start and his Orioles debut. But it didn't last too long. He did fan three in the first two scoreless innings on 30 pitches. But it came off the rails for him during a 27-pitch last of the third.

Boston produced four doubles to left field off Milone and took a 4-0 lead. Batting ninth, Jose Peraza doubled to make it 1-0 and he scored on a two-bagger by J.D. Martinez, who drove in three runs tonight. Later a two-run double by Kevin Pillar extended the lead to 4-0.

Milone was the losing pitcher and lifted after three innings. He allowed four hits and four runs with three walks and five strikeouts. He threw 57 pitches, 32 for strikes.

After the bad last of the third, it got worse for Baltimore in the Boston fourth. The Red Sox batted 11 men against Oriole relievers Cody Carroll and Travis Lakins Sr. and scored six times. That inning included five Boston hits and another Martinez double, this one driving in two.

Carroll started the inning and faced just four batters as his inning went walk, walk, line single to load them up and bases-loaded walk. Martinez followed with his two-run double and it was 7-0. Later in the inning Xander Bogaerts, Kevin Pillar and Christian Vázquez produced RBI singles.

So after four innings, Boston was 9-for-20 with six walks and five doubles. It could have been going much, much better for the Orioles, who were down 10-0 to that point.

The Orioles fall to 43-24 all-time in openers. They are now 8-2 in their past 10, 9-3 in the last 12 and 15-5 in the last 20 opening days. They are 6-3 when facing Boston in the opener.

Boston right-hander Nathan Eovaldi blanked the Orioles on three hits through five. But they got on the board in the top of the sixth. Anthony Santander doubled with one out and scored on a Renato Núñez RBI double to left. Eovaldi got the win, allowing five hits and one run on 89 pitches.

But Boston added three off David Hess in the last of the sixth and it was a 13-1 lead as Jackie Bradley Jr. added a two-run double. Rio Ruiz added a solo homer in the seventh off Sox right-hander Austin Brice for the final 13-2 margin.

The Orioles were outhit 17-6 and Boston had eight doubles and went 10-for-19 with runners in scoring position. No Oriole had a multi-hit game.

The same two teams play Saturday afternoon at 1:35 p.m. with right-hander Alex Cobb facing Boston left-hander Martín Pérez.




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