Corbin Burnes, Colton Cowser lift Orioles to 7-1 win to spoil Red Sox’s home opener
BOSTON — Fenway Park, meet Corbin Burnes.
After spending the first six seasons of his MLB career in the National League, the Orioles’ right-hander made his first career start in Boston on Tuesday and pitched seven dominant innings to lead Baltimore past the Red Sox, 7-1, in their American League East rival’s home opener. The sellout crowd of 36,093 quietly watched as Burnes allowed one run on two hits, the lone blemish a first-inning home run by Red Sox outfielder Tyler O’Neill.
Burnes shook off the early home run by retiring 19 of the next 21 hitters he faced, never allowing another base runner to make it past first base. Boston barely left the infield at all after that, managing a couple of weak fly balls to center field as the final 18 batters were retired in order. Burnes recorded the rest of his outs on ground balls (seven) and strikeouts (six). He needed just 90 pitches.
Outfielder Colton Cowser, also making his Fenway Park debut, powered the offense with two doubles and four RBIs. Drawing his third start of the season, Cowser entered Tuesday’s game with a quarter of the plate appearances accumulated by Baltimore’s everyday position players. Manager Brandon Hyde started the rookie in left field to stack the lineup with left-handed hitters against Red Sox right-hander Brayan Bello, giving struggling outfielder Austin Hays (.077 batting average in 29 plate appearances) the day off.
Cowser responded with clutch hits in each of his first two at-bats. After O’Neill’s blast put Boston ahead 1-0 early, center fielder Cedric Mullins drew a two-out walk in the third and stole second base to get into scoring position with Cowser at the plate. Cowser worked the count full before taking a 97 mph fastball on the inner half and driving it off the Green Monster in left field for an RBI double that tied the game.
Two innings later, first baseman Ryan Mountcastle got on with a two-out infield single and Mullins drove a fly ball to left field that should have been an easy catch for Red Sox left fielder Jarren Duran. However, he missed the ball just as he crossed into the shadow cast by the second deck over the left field corner, allowing the Orioles to put runners on second and third for Cowser. He delivered once again, this time hitting a line drive into shallow left-center to score both runs and put Baltimore ahead for good.
Though that was already more than enough run support for Burnes, the Orioles tacked on three more off the Boston bullpen. Shortstop Gunnar Henderson ended a personal 0-for-12 skid with a one-out double in the seventh. He then made a heads-up steal of third base with reliever Josh Winckowski not paying attention and scored on an RBI single by Adley Rutschman one pitch later. Cowser then made it 5-1 with a sacrifice fly in the eighth.
The Orioles broke the game open in the ninth. Anthony Santander had an RBI knock after Henderson and Rutschman singled back-to-back to start the frame, and Mullins singled with the bases loaded to score Rutschman for a 7-1 lead.
Danny Coulombe struck out the side in the bottom half of the eighth and Jacob Webb pitched a perfect ninth to help the Orioles improve to 6-4. After dropping consecutive games to the Pittsburgh Pirates in walk-off fashion to close out their weekend series, the Orioles pulled back .500 on the road trip with two games left to play.
This story will be updated.
Orioles at Red Sox
Wednesday, 7:10 p.m.
TV: MASN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM