Yordan Alvarez hit two home runs and drove in three runs, while rookie right-hander Spencer Arrighetti struck out a season-high 13 batters over seven innings, leading the Houston Astros to a 5-4 win over the Boston Red Sox on Saturday.
Zach Dezenzo hit his first major-league home run, and Alex Bregman added a solo home run for the AL West-leading Astros, who have now won two straight games against Boston and four in a row overall.
In his 19th career multi-home run game, Alvarez continued his strong performance at Fenway Park, where he’s hitting .463 with seven homers and 19 RBIs. Before this game, he led all AL hitters with a .354 average in road games.
“You can kind of tell just by the game, the results,” Alvarez said through a team translator, when asked if he enjoys hitting at Fenway.
Boston manager Alex Cora considers Alvarez to be among the best hitters in the game, comparing him to Yankees’ Aaron Judge and former Red Sox slugger David Ortiz.
“For me, he’s up there with Judge, to be honest with you,” Cora said.
“It seems like he likes hitting here. That (Green Monster) keeps him closed, he can shoot it the other way. … Closest thing to David, probably, in the game. Very, very, very similar to David Ortiz.”
Danny Jansen and Masataka Yoshida hit solo home runs for the Red Sox, who lost a series for the first time in their last four.
Alvarez’s second home run came off a slider from Brad Keller (0-3) and traveled an estimated 422 feet into the right-field seats.
Arrighetti (5-10) allowed just two hits — the solo home runs — and walked one in his 92-pitch outing.
“Yeah, I think I was really locked in,” he said. “Honestly, I got really angry in the first inning, second inning, a little bit. That sometimes helps me. … I don’t think I necessarily had my best stuff, but I think that I was really dialed in using what I had today.”
Josh Hader closed the game for his 25th save despite giving up a leadoff double to Rafael Devers. It was his 25th consecutive successful save opportunity, setting a Houston club record.
