BALTIMORE — The Baltimore Orioles are making friends in Seattle, Toronto and New York.
The last-place Orioles dealt the Boston Red Sox another blow in their postseason push, with Ryan Mountcastle hitting a three-run homer in the third inning of Baltimore’s 6-2 win Thursday night.
Baltimore has lost 107 games this year but took two of three in this series against Boston — welcome news for the Mariners, Blue Jays and Yankees. The Red Sox fell into a tie with Seattle for the American League’s second wild card. Boston trails New York by two games for the first wild card and leads Toronto by one.
“Obviously, we’ve got to win,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “We’ve been talking about winning series, and we haven’t won the last two.”
Kiké Hernandez homered on the first pitch of the game for the Red Sox, but not much went right for them after that. Mountcastle put Baltimore up 3-1 with his 33rd home run of the season, and the Orioles added three more runs in the sixth.
Boston’s Nick Pivetta (9-8) struck out the side in the first, but he ultimately allowed three runs and four hits in 4 2/3 innings. He struck out eight with two walks.
Alexander Wells (2-3) allowed a run and three hits in six innings after entering the game with a 7.61 ERA.
This wasn’t as bad as 2011, when the Red Sox allowed two runs in the ninth inning at Baltimore and were eliminated on the final night of the regular season. That collapse ended manager Terry Francona’s tenure in Boston.
A decade later, the Orioles were a thorn in Boston’s side again, but the Red Sox still have time to recover when they finish the regular season with a series at Washington.
Boston pitchers threw four wild pitches in this game. Two of them came in the sixth, when the Red Sox also made an error. Tyler Nevin gave the Orioles a 5-1 lead with a two-run single, and Pat Valaika followed with a sacrifice fly.
“It was great to be able to come through in that moment,” said Nevin, who was playing his third major league game. “It’s just fun when the games really matter this much to somebody. We’re out of it, but we can still have an effect on how the season goes.”
Nevin is the son of former major leaguer Phil Nevin, who is the Yankees third base coach.
“We kind of joked about it,” he said. “I told him I got called up again, and he said, ‘Alright hey, why don’t you try to help us out a little bit?’”