Red Sox erupt for 10 runs in ninth, rout Orioles 17-1

A 10-run ninth inning did more than bury Baltimore. It gave Boston a release valve after four straight losses, and it delivered one of the most unusual innings in the club’s recent memory, with Andruw Monasterio’s grand slam setting off a burst that also included homers from Willson Contreras and Caleb Durbin.

The Red Sox had not scored 10 runs in a ninth inning since May 7, 2017 against the Twins, and they had never hit three home runs in the ninth before. That rally turned a close enough game into a 17-1 rout at Camden Yards, the kind of margin that can change the way a clubhouse sounds the next morning. Boston entered the day under pressure because its offense had been drawing scrutiny, and the team had gone 19 straight games without hitting multiple home runs, its longest such drought in a season since a 20-game run in May 1993.

Garrett Crochet gave Boston the kind of start that can steady a team before the bats take over. He pitched six scoreless innings, allowed three hits and two walks, and struck out seven, a sharp rebound after his previous two starts had combined for 15 earned runs. Trevor Rogers lasted only 1 2/3 innings for Baltimore, and his 62 pitches told the story of an Orioles staff that never found a clean answer once Boston’s lineup started to stack contact.

The ninth inning became its own collapse. Monasterio finished with a grand slam and two doubles in Boston’s 17-hit attack, and Durbin hit his first home run as a member of the Red Sox. Durbin entered the game batting .148 with no homers and seven RBIs, so the two-run shot was both a personal breakthrough and part of the team’s biggest offensive outburst of the season. Baltimore even turned to position player Weston Wilson on the mound, and he averaged 50.1 mph over 25 pitches as the inning spun further out of control.

The result also carried immediate organizational weight. Hours after the win, Boston fired manager Alex Cora and five coaches and named Chad Tracy, the manager at Triple-A Worcester, as interim manager. It was Boston’s first in-season managerial firing since Jimy Williams in August 2001, and the 16-run margin was the largest in any major league manager’s final game with a team in the Modern Era, since 1900. For a franchise trying to reset, the night offered both a reminder of its offensive ceiling and a hard lesson in how quickly a season can turn.