BOSTON -- The Royals won the battle of the bullpens and beat the Red Sox, 7-6, in 13 innings Tuesday night.


 


 


 


Eduardo Nunez’ solo homer in the last of the 12th brought Boston back from a 4-3 deficit to a tie game but Brian Johnson coughed up a three-run homer to Jorge Soler in the top of the 13th.


 


 


 


Boston starter Chris Sale was two outs away from recording a win but [...]

BILL BALLOU The Worcester Telegram & Gazette

BOSTON -- The Royals won the battle of the bullpens and beat the Red Sox, 7-6, in 13 innings Tuesday night.

 

 

 

Eduardo Nunez’ solo homer in the last of the 12th brought Boston back from a 4-3 deficit to a tie game but Brian Johnson coughed up a three-run homer to Jorge Soler in the top of the 13th.

 

 

 

Boston starter Chris Sale was two outs away from recording a win but Craig Kimbrel surrendered a solo home run to Royals’ No. 9 batter Alex Gordon in the ninth. It was Gordon’s first home run of the season.

 

 

 

Kimbrel has seven blown saves in his Red Sox career, three of them costing Sale a win. Sale went seven innings and allowed five hits and two runs, one of them earned.

 

 

 

Sale did not have a clean inning until the seventh.

 

 

 

Soler hit a one-out double in the first inning and got to third but Sale struck out Salvador Perez to end the inning. The Royals had two hits in the second but Xander Bogaerts started a double play in the midst of it all and that prevented Kansas City from turning its little threat into runs.

 

 

 

Sale faced four batters in the third and it was a 0-0 game heading into the top of the fourth inning. Two Boston errors led to one Royals run.

 

 

 

Devers was charged with the first error, his team high sixth of the season. He botched Perez’ ground ball leading off the inning. Sale then struck out Jon Jay and had no one to blame but himself for how the rest of the inning went down.

 

 

 

He walked Abraham Almonte to move Jay up to second base then hit Lucas Duda with a pitch, his second hit batsman of the night, to load the bases. Alcides Escobar followed with a fly ball to left and J.D. Martinez made a pretty good throw to the plate after the catch.

 

 

 

The ball seemed to be there a bit before Perez but when Christian Vazquez made the sweep tag, it popped loose and rolled several feet away. That allowed the other two runners to advance.

 

 

 

Gordon then grounded to shortstop to end the inning.

 

 

 

Kansas City added to its lead with another run in the sixth and it was an ugly run, at least from the Red Sox’ viewpoint.

 

 

 

Jay opened the inning with a single to right. He advanced to second on Duda’s one-out single to left. Escobar reached first and Jay went to third on Escobar’s force-out grounder, then the Royals tried a double steal.

 

 

 

Escobar broke for second and Jay headed for home. Vazquez threw to second and the Sox nailed Escobar in a rundown, but the tag was applied well after Jay crossed home plate with his team’s second run.

 

 

 

The Red Sox took a long time to get anything going against Royals starter Jakob Junis, the second-year righty who is 12-5 in the major leagues after going 31-43 in the minors.

 

 

 

The Red Sox finally scored in the sixth and tied the game at 2-2 in the process.

 

 

 

Mitch Moreland hit his fourth home run of the season — and they have all been bombs — with one out, depositing the ball over the bullpen in straightaway right field. After Bogaerts grounded out, Devers ripped a double a bit shy of home run distance to right, then Jackie Bradley Jr. drove him home with a base hit to left field.

 

 

 

In the seventh, Benintendi hit a one-out double and scored the go-ahead run on a pair of wild pitches by reliever Brad Keller.

 

 

 

Kansas City finally pushed across another run in the 12th against Heath Hembree. Drew Butera doubled to left to lead off the inning and eventually came home on Jay’s sacrifice fly. Nunez’ homer provided a dramatic moment but Soler’s dampened the temporary euphoria.