Joe Kelly Ends Winning Streak And Leaves Game Early In Loss To Baltimore Orioles

The Boston Red Sox (68-76) faced the Baltimore Orioles (71-73) Tuesday night looking to even the series by sending the recent dominant Joe Kelly to the mound, while Baltimore had Ubaldo Jímenez pitching for them. Kelly was coming from a historic stretch with eight straight wins, becoming the first Red Sox pitcher since Pedro Martinez to achieve that. In that stretch, he was posting a 2.59 ERA with 28 strikeouts and 48.2 innings pitched.

A win for the Red Sox would put them one game behind the Orioles, who are now in third place of the division. However everything went downhill pretty quickly for Boston. The Orioles couldn't get anything from Joe Kelly, who was dealing during the first two innings with only one walk and a three-strikeouts bottom half of the 2nd. The Red Sox attacked first in the top half of the 3rd with a run that came from a back-to-back singles from Mookie Betts and Dustin Pedroia, and a walk to David Ortiz that loaded the bases. Travis Shaw stepped to the plate to face Jimenez for the second time in the game, and received a bases-loaded walk to give the Red Sox a 1-0 lead.

That lead would not last long though as Kelly quickly gave up the lead in the next inning when he surrendered a single to J.J. Hardy and a home run to Steve Pearce that gave the Orioles a 2-1 lead. Gerardo Parra singled to right field and Manny Machado followed him with a forceout that placed him in first base. Kelly struggled again and gave up a single to Chris Davis that allowed Machado to score thanks to a throwing error from Betts. Adam Jones continued with the offense attack with a single, and the medical staff showed up to look at Joe Kelly's arm. It was later reported that Kelly left the game with a right shoulder tightness and fatigue. Soon enough he got replaced by Craig Breslow, who got Matt Wieters out on a sacrifice fly that scored Davis and gave Baltimore a 4-1 lead.

The Red Sox didn't take long to counterattack the Orioles, since they tied the game in the top half of the 5th. Betts began the inning with a single, and Dustin Pedroia followed with a double. Xander Bogaerts scored Betts on a double and put Pedroia in scoring position, and David Ortiz scored the second baseman with a sacrifice fly that cut the Orioles lead to 3-4. While Travis Shaw was batting, Bogaerts stole second base to put himself in scoring position and even though the first baseman struck out, Pablo Sandoval scored the shortstop with a single. It seemed that Sandoval had reached second base with his hit, but after an umpire's review the Kung Fu Panda was out at second to end the inning. However, he managed to tie the game to 4-4.

Similar to the Red Sox, Baltimore also was quick in his response to the game tied. Machado homered in the very next inning, and gave the Orioles a 5-4 lead. It seemed that this game was going to end in 9 innings, but Travis Shaw had a different plan and tied the game with a solo home run in the top half of the 8th. The Red Sox and Orioles went into extra innings, and Baltimore finally won in the top half of the 13th with Jonathan Aro giving up a walk to Parra and back-to-back singles to Machado and Davis.