ARLINGTON, Texas — J.D. Martinez homered twice, raising his major league-leading total to nine, and the Boston Red Sox beat Kohei Arihara and the Texas Rangers 6-1 on Friday night.
After Arihara (2-3) walked the game’s first two batters, Martinez hit a 79-mph slider into the left-field seats and Xander Bogaerts homered into the Red Sox bullpen in left-center field.
Martinez led off the third with a 440-foot blast to center off an 80-mph splitter thrown by the Japanese right-hander.
It was the 17th career multihomer game for Martinez, and second this season. He hit three homers at Baltimore on April 11.
Rafael Devers also went deep for the AL East-leading Red Sox, who need just four batters to match their combined runs in their previous three games – two of those wins.
While the Red Sox were hitting balls over the wall, Nathan Eovaldi (4-2) allowed one run on four singles over six innings, with five strikeouts and two walks. The right-hander extended his MLB-longest active homerless streak to 47 2/3 innings. He has faced 196 batters since Austin Meadows homered off him in Tampa Bay last Sept. 12.
Arihara had another short outing, allowing six runs on four hits (all homers) with two walks and a hit batsman over 2 2/3 innings. The 28-year-old right-hander, in his first MLB season after six years in Japan, gave up five runs in two innings against the White Sox last Sunday.
Brock Holt, who played from the Red Sox from 2013-19 and joined his hometown Rangers this offseason, drove in the only Texas run with two-out single in the second.
After Martinez homered for his MLB-leading 25th RBI and Bogaerts had a 380-foot flyout to center to start the third, Devers hit his seventh homer for his 21st RBI.
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