Jarren Duran hit a tiebreaking double in the sixth inning, leading the visiting Boston Red Sox to a 9-5 win over the Kansas City Royals on Monday.
With two outs, Duran smacked his American League-leading 35th double inside the left field line, scoring two to snap a 2-2 tie. The Red Sox added four runs in the seventh to pull away.
The Red Sox have won five of seven, and they gave Alex Cora his 500th managerial win, fourth most in club history.
Boston starter James Paxton pitched six innings, allowing two runs on five hits and a walk while striking out four.
Paxton (9-3), acquired July 26 in a trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers, collected his first win since returning to the Red Sox, for whom he went 7-5 last year.
Duran drove in three runs, Masataka Yoshida had four hits and Connor Wong had two hits and two RBIs for Boston, which earned its fourth win in five games.
Maikel Garcia had two hits and an RBI and Michael Massey doubled, tripled and scored twice for the Royals, who had won six of their previous seven games.
Kansas City starter Brady Singer (8-7) allowed four runs on a season-high 10 hits with a walk and six strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings.
David Hamilton opened the scoring in the second inning, bouncing an RBI double past first base. Two batters later, Duran gave Boston a 2-0 lead with a run-scoring grounder.
Bobby Witt Jr. cut the deficit in half with a two-out, opposite-field RBI single in the third. The Royals tied the game in the fourth on a two-out triple by Michael Massey and Freddy Fermin’s run-scoring infield hit.
Fermin then recorded his first major league stolen base but was stranded at second.
Singer struggled to locate his sinker early on, working long counts while allowing six hits — all to left-handed hitters — among the first 12 batters. In all, nine of the 10 hits against the right-hander came from lefty swingers.
Pinch hitter Romy Gonzalez socked his third homer to highlight the seventh-inning rally against reliever Angel Zerpa, who allowed five hits and four runs while getting just one out.
Yoshida snapped an 0-for-16 slide and matched his career high with four of Boston’s 18 hits.
Boston has recorded at least 10 hits in 12 of its past 13 games and leads the majors with 49 games of at least ten hits.
The Royals’ Vinnie Pasquantino hit a leadoff homer in the eighth — his 16th — to cap the scoring.
–Field Level Media
