BOSTON – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Masataka Yoshida went 2-for-4 with a go-ahead home run in the bottom of the eighth inning as the Boston Red Sox rallied to sweep the visiting Oakland Athletics with a 4-3 win on Sunday afternoon.
After dropping the first two games of the series, Oakland scored first and held a 3-1 lead through six innings.
Boston tied the game on Adam Duvall‘s solo homer and Christian Arroyo’s RBI double in the sixth inning before Yoshida’s solo shot into the Green Monster seats two innings later, extending its winning streak to five games entering the All-Star break.
Duvall finished with a pair of RBIs, while Yoshida also scored two runs.
Chris Martin (3-1) earned the win.
Brent Rooker went 3-for-3 with a solo homer for Oakland, which held an 11-6 advantage in the hit column but committed three errors in the field. Jace Peterson and Manny Pina both had two hits.
Ken Waldichuk (2-6) allowed the winning run over 1 1/3 innings after Paul Blackburn, who had been scheduled to start Saturday before an illness scratch, pitched in relief of starter JP Sears.
The A’s got out to a first-inning lead as Ryan Noda hit a one-out double before advancing on a wild pitch and scoring on Red Sox catcher Jorge Alfaro’s subsequent throwing error.
Red Sox opener Tayler Scott got out of the first inning, allowing just the one unearned run.
Rob Refsnyder drew a leadoff walk and scored a tying run on Duvall’s sacrifice fly in the Boston half of the opening frame.
Oakland took the lead when Noda drew a bases-loaded, two-out walk against Boston reliever Chris Murphy in the second. Murphy worked three innings in relief of Scott, striking out four, walking four and yielding two hits.
Rooker added to the A’s lead with a one-out solo shot to left in the fifth.
–Field Level Media