ANAHEIM, Calif. — Jarren Duran hit a tiebreaking homer in the eighth inning, Tyler O’Neill had two home runs and the Boston Red Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels 8-6 Friday night for their fifth consecutive victory.
O’Neill, Triston Casas and Reese McGuire all connected in the second inning of a five-homer game for streaking Boston, with O’Neill and Casas homering on consecutive pitches by Griffin Canning.
After Duran put Boston ahead late with his first homer of the season, O’Neill added another solo shot in the ninth as the Red Sox improved to 6-2 in their best start since 2018.
Logan O’Hoppe hit his first career grand slam for the Angels, whose four-game winning streak ended in their home opener.
After Los Angeles rallied to tie the game in the sixth and seventh, Duran hit a 105 mph line drive to center off José Soriano (0-1).
Duran, who attended Cypress High School 15 minutes from Angel Stadium before playing at nearby Long Beach State, also had an RBI single in the sixth for Boston.
Chris Martin (1-0) allowed two hits and a run in the seventh for Boston. Kenley Jansen pitched the ninth for his third save.
Canning yielded four runs while pitching five-hit ball into the fifth inning for the Angels. Kutter Crawford pitched four innings of one-hit ball for Boston before fading in the fifth.
Boston lost shortstop Trevor Story to a shoulder injury in the fourth inning when he dived to make a stop on Mike Trout’s hard-hit grounder. Story backhanded the ball, but was left writhing in pain on the outfield grass when he landed hard on his left arm and shoulder.
The Red Sox only said Story had “left shoulder pain.”
After failing to homer in their weekend series at Oakland, the Red Sox went deep early and often in Anaheim. O’Neill hit his third homer of the young season leading off the second, and Casas immediately followed with his first. Six pitches later, McGuire added a two-run shot.
Canning is the first Angels starter to allow three homers in an inning since Jered Weaver in August 2016. Weaver, who retired a year later, threw out the first pitch Friday.
Los Angeles chased Crawford in the fifth on Nolan Schanuel’s bases-loaded walk.
The Red Sox then committed back-to-back errors to open the bottom of the sixth, and O’Hoppe eventually cleared the bases with a 407-foot grand slam into the ficus trees beyond center field.
Anthony Rendon beat out an infield single later in the sixth to end his 0-for-21 start to the fifth season of his seven-year, $245 million contract.
Boston went back ahead in the seventh against Soriano on Enmanuel Valdez’s sacrifice fly before Miguel Sanó tied it again for the Angels, driving home Taylor Ward with a single for his first RBI with his new team.
O’Neill also connected off Soriano for his second career multi-homer game after doing it for St. Louis on Aug. 29, 2022.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Red Sox: 2B Vaughn Grissom (groin) and OF Rob Refsnyder (broken toe) took live batting practice in Fort Myers, Florida. They’ll join the team in Boston for the home opener next week, and they’ll play in rehab games shortly after that.
UP NEXT
Reid Detmers (1-0, 1.80 ERA) takes the mound for Los Angeles against Garrett Whitlock (1-0, 1.80) in a meeting of two starters coming off strong season debuts.
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