Sonny Gray shines again, and the Red Sox make it two straight wins at the Angels to start grinding road trip
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Call them the Road Sox.
With another well-rounded performance Saturday night, the Red Sox beat the Angels, 8-1, to maintain their winning ways away from Fenway Park.
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By taking the first two games of this series, they actually own a winning record on the road at 22-21. That is tied for second-best, behind only the Yankees (26-20), in the American League.
In Boston, even after a successful homestand, the Sox are 17-27 — thus the overall 39-48 record that has them stuck in the bottom third of the league.
This one featured a little of everything: home runs from Willson Contreras and Romy Gonzalez, a strong start from Sonny Gray, and three double plays turned by the infield.
The Angels (36-54) totaled four hits, and just one after the third inning.
The Red Sox have won seven of their past nine games overall.
Gray was good across six innings — one run, four hits — but exited after 70 pitches. It wasn’t immediately clear why.
The righthander struck out seven and walked two.
Unlike in his previous outing, when he took a no-hit bid into the eighth inning against the Yankees, Gray eliminated the drama early. Josh Lowe homered — an estimated 437 feet to center field — in the second.
Gray’s most significant wobbling came immediately thereafter, when Jo Adell walked and Wade Meckler singled. He rebounded by striking out Donovan Walton and Tyler Heineman, both flailing at sweepers well below the strike zone, to escape the jam.
Across the rest of his night, Gray faced just one more than the minimum number of batters, using a pair of double-play grounders to help him stay efficient and effective.
The Red Sox struck early against lefthanded starter Sam Aldegheri, who walked two of his first three batters — after getting ahead in the count, 1-2, on both. Contreras blasted a no-doubt, three-run home run to left field to boost the Sox to a fast, sizeable lead after just one out.
That was the only hit Aldegheri allowed across four innings and 88 pitches, but he had twice as many walks (four) as strikeouts (two) and his ERA jumped to 5.08.
As soon as Aldegheri exited, the Sox blew it open against rookie reliever Samy Natera Jr., who had been quite good across his first month in the majors (0.84 ERA, 15 strikeouts in 10⅔ innings).
Anthony Seigler slapped a double inside the first-base line, and Ceddanne Rafaela drew a walk. Wilyer Abreu smoked a double off the right-field wall, scoring both. Rafaela hesitated coming around third base, but — after the Angels made a delayed throw to try to get Abreu at second — went for it.
With two outs, Gonzalez hammered a slider over the middle of the plate to left field. It eked over the short wall for a two-run homer, his first long ball of the year (in his fifth game).
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