The Red Sox came back to Fenway Park on Tuesday and opened a three-game series against the Orioles with Connelly Early on the mound, a quick reset for a club that had just won two in a row. Shane Baz started for Baltimore in a meeting that put the bottom two teams in the AL East on the same field, with the Orioles two games ahead of Boston.
Early had given Boston a reason to believe he could handle this stage. He was 5-2 with a 2.95 ERA, beat the Orioles in his first look at them on April 26 after allowing two solo homers over 6⅔ innings, and then threw seven scoreless innings against the Braves on May 27. The Red Sox, meanwhile, had scored at least three runs in 11 of their last 14 games, a stretch that fit with the way they had played on their way out of the day off.
That recent push has not erased the bigger picture. Boston had won only three of its previous 10 series, and it entered the opener in last place in the division even after taking the final two games against the Guardians. Baltimore arrived with momentum of its own after going 7-3 on its last homestand against the Tigers, Rays and Blue Jays, and Craig Albernaz said the club was “playing the baseball that we’re capable of” while the work was finally starting to show up against good teams.
The matchup also gave Baltimore a chance to back up what Baz had already shown against Boston. He was 3-1 with a 2.64 ERA in five career starts against the Red Sox, struck out a season-high nine batters in seven innings of one-run ball against them last Tuesday, and had worked at least six innings in each of his last three starts while allowing one run or fewer in his previous two. Boston also turned to Aroldis Chapman, whose 27 straight successful save chances were the third-longest streak in franchise history, if the game stayed close.
What happens next is simple enough: the teams keep playing the series, and the standings will have a harder time hiding whichever club lands the first punch. For Boston, the question is whether Early can extend a strong run into a sharper response against an opponent just above it in the division. For Baltimore, Tuesday was a chance to show that its recent surge was not just a hot homestand, but the start of something more stable.
