{"id":837241,"date":"2026-08-01T06:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T06:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/837241\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T06:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T06:27:13","slug":"rafaela-has-2-run-homer-to-spark-a-5-run-7th-as-red-sox-rally-past-dodgers-9-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/837241\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafaela has 2-run homer to spark a 5-run 7th as Red Sox rally past Dodgers, 9-4"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES — – Ceddane Rafaela’s go-ahead two-run homer highlighted a five-run seventh inning and the Boston Red Sox<\/a> rallied after blowing an early lead to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> 9-4 on Friday night in the series opener.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox led 3-0 in the third before the Dodgers scored a run in the fourth and three more in the fifth on Shohei Ohtani<\/a>‘s two-run, two-out blast to take a 4-3 lead.<\/p>\n

Ohtani was 2 for 5 with two runs and two RBI a night after sitting out because of lingering soreness in his left knee that has kept the two-way superstar off the mound since July 3.<\/p>\n

Dodgers reliever Cole Irvin (0-1) gave up a leadoff walk to Nick Sogard<\/a> in the fifth. Rafaela followed with a 405-foot shot to left that put the Red Sox back in front, 5-4.<\/p>\n

Andruw Monasterio<\/a>‘s two-run RBI double and Jarren Duran<\/a>‘s RBI groundout to Irvin extended the lead to 8-4.<\/p>\n

Irvin gave up six runs and eight hits over six innings of relief with five strikeouts in his first outing in the majors since 2024. He had his Triple-A contract selected earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

Red Sox first baseman Willson Contreras<\/a> was hit in the helmet by a pitch from Dodgers reliever Will Klein<\/a> in the third and left the game for precautionary reasons.<\/p>\n

Boston reliever Brayan Bello<\/a> (3-6) got the win with three hits over four innings.<\/p>\n

Ohtani’s 24th homer came off reliever Jovani Mor\u00e1n. The left-hander had just entered after starter Ranger Su\u00e1rez gave up an RBI single to Eliezer Alfonzo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Freddie Freeman<\/a> went 3 for 4 and extended his hitting streak to 10 games – longest by a Dodger this season – with a two-out RBI single that scored Ohtani in the fourth.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Red Sox LHP Payton Tolle<\/a> (6-6, 3.32 ERA) was set to start Saturday against Dodgers RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> (11-6, 2.72).<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/MLBbr\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES — – Ceddane Rafaela’s go-ahead two-run homer highlighted a five-run seventh inning and the Boston Red…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[409553,64,63,5156,794,1187,591,85],"class_list":["post-837241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-409553","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-espn","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}