The Boston Red Sox keep rolling.
The hottest team in baseball defeated the Athletics 13-1 at Fenway Park on Friday, Aug. 7, and while the bats did plenty of damage again, on this night it was all about the Payton Tolle show.
The second-year lefthander mowed down the A's, striking out a career-high 14 batters in his six innings of work. He gave up just two hits and no walks, firing 61 of his 84 pitches for strikes.
He was perfect through four innings and struck out the side in the second and fourth. After an infield single to start the sixth, he struck out the last three batters he faced.
Tolle walked off the mound with a 9-1 lead, which the Red Sox then extended to 11-1 in the bottom of the sixth.
They finished with 15 hits as they put up double-digit
runs for the third time in four games.
Boston has now won nine games in a row and is a scorching hot 18-3 since the All-Star break. But the Red Sox's hot streak started well before that. After falling to 32-46 on June 24, the Red Sox now sit at 64-51. Their 32-5 stretch has put them well inside wild card position and in striking distance of the AL-best Tampa Bay Rays.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Payton Tolle strikes out 14 A's as Red Sox run winning streak to 9
