BALTIMORE — The Orioles beat the Boston Red Sox 10-3 on Friday night and turned Camden Yards into a home-run show, hitting six long balls in a game that left the stadium operator out of fireworks before it was over. Five of those blasts came against Brayan Bello, who was charged with 13 hits and eight runs in just three innings.
The scoreboard message said it plainly: due to too many Orioles home runs, the park had unfortunately run out of fireworks for the night. It was the kind of line that fit the night in Baltimore, where every hard swing seemed to push the game further out of Boston’s reach.
The loss dropped the Red Sox to 9-17, a record that already carried the sting of having been swept by the Yankees at home before they arrived in Baltimore. That made Friday less a one-night stumble than another bad turn in a season that has not found a foothold.
For Boston, the margin was ugly, but the shape of it was worse: Bello was beaten early, Baltimore kept the pressure on, and the Orioles never gave the Red Sox a chance to settle in. The next question for Boston is not whether the offense can catch up to a bad night like this one. It is whether the pitching can keep the game from getting away before the lineup has a chance to matter.