Guardians hit four home runs but still fall to Red Sox 11-7

BOSTON — Four home runs still wasn't enough for the Guardians against the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Tuesday night. Jhonkensy Noel, Austin Hedges, David Fry and Brayan Rocchio each went deep, but Boston's Alex Bregman man legged out a hard chopper down the third-base line for an infield single with two outs in the eighth inning to drive in the go-ahead run, and the Red Sox beat Cleveland Guardians 11-7 for their third straight victory. Jarren Duran and Trevor Story followed with RBI doubles off Cade Smith (6-6) for Boston's second four-run inning of the game. Justin Slaten (2-4) earned the win with a perfect eighth inning. The loss clinched the series for the Red Sox, who go for the sweep today. Noel had three hits for the Guardians, who are competing with Boston in the wild card race. Cleveland starter Slade Cecconi allowed seven runs on 11 hits, including a pair of homers, pitching one out into the sixth. Ceddanne Rafaela had two hits, including a two-run homer to tie the game in the bottom of the sixth after Cleveland scored six in the top half to take a 7-5 lead. Masataka Yoshida had three hits, including a pair of doubles, to help the Red Sox to their 10th win in 13 games. Boston scored four in the second and took a 5-1 lead into sixth before Cleveland tagged Red Sox starter Garrett Crochet for six runs. Hedges led off with a homer, Fry added a two-run shot and Brayan Rocchio hit a three-run homer to make it 7-5. The Red Sox tied it in the bottom half on Rafaela's two-run home run that cleared the seats above the Green Monster and landed on Lansdowne Street. The Red Sox had six consecutive hits in the second inning. The streak was snapped when Carlos Narvaez was picked off second, and Bregman flied out to right to end the inning. The attendance of 34,902 snapped a streak of 20 straight sellouts at Fenway Park, Boston's longest sellout streak since 2018. Prior to the game, Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said his team would employ a six-man rotation. Joey Cantillo will start today's series finale, joining Tanner Bibee, Gavin Williams, Cecconi, Logan Allen and Parker Messick on the starting staff. "We're going to go with the six-man rotation for a little while," Vogt said. "Just with the starting pitching, where they are innings wise and where they are in their career. And we have 24 games in 24 days, so we thought it was a good opportunity for us to get them … they'll all be on five days' rest throughout this long process." Of the six starters, Cecconi and Williams have already passed their career highs in innings pitched, with Allen and Bibee nearing theirs. Cecconi's outing brought his season total to 107 1/3 innings. The right-hander surpassed his previous high of 77 innings one start into August. Williams is at 143 2/3 on the season, nearly doubling his 76 innings from last year.