BOSTON — Rob Refsnyder and Tyler O’Neill crushed back-to-back home runs in the third inning to give the Red Sox a 4-1 lead Monday.
They weren’t done …
The duo again went back-to-back in the eighth inning, leading Boston to a 12-3 victory over the Orioles here at Fenway Park.
It marked only the second time in franchise history a pair of teammates have hit back-to-back homers twice in the same game. Mo Vaughn and Tim Naehring did it in the second and sixth innings April 19, 1994.
“TO has been looking amazing the past week or so,” Refsnyder said. “I told him before the game, I was like, ‘You’re going to hit a ball hard every at-bat right now.’”
Refsnyder batted third and O’Neill hit cleanup.
Refsnyder’s two-run blast in the third went 412 feet and 107.1 mph off the bat to center field. O’Neill’s solo shot then went 371 feet and 110 mph off the bat over the Green Monster.
Refsnyder’s second homer wrapped around Pesky’s Pole. O’Neill then crushed a 422-foot blast (107.3 mph off the bat) to left-center field.
O’Neill, who has 29 homers, recorded his seven multi-homer game this season, tied for the MLB lead with Astros slugger Yordan Álvarez. O’Neill has homered four times in the past three games. Seven of his past 13 hits have been homers.
“I feel good. I feel like I’m in a good, balanced position,” O’Neill said. “My timing is in a pretty good spot.”
Refsnyder went 4-for-4 with a career-high five RBIs. It was a slump-busting game after he entered 12-for-68 (.176 batting average) in his previous 24 games.
“I’ve been freaking so bad, so it’s been a grind,” Refsnyder said. “It’s been a lot of frustrating nights. A lot of credit to the hitting department. They (spent) countless hours trying to help me out (and) figure some stuff out. So it felt really, really good to kind of break through. Yeah, it’s been super frustrating. Also, Jarren Duran’s been kind of helping me out behind the scenes, just keeping me positive and things like that. So a lot of teammates have been picking me up.”
