{"id":743546,"date":"2026-07-05T06:54:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T06:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/743546\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T06:54:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T06:54:30","slug":"homers-by-contreras-gonzalez-back-grays-strong-start-in-red-soxs-8-1-win-over-angels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/743546\/","title":{"rendered":"Homers by Contreras, Gonzalez back Gray’s strong start in Red Sox’s 8-1 win over Angels"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Willson Contreras<\/a> and Romy Gonzalez<\/a> homered to back the superb pitching of Sonny Gray<\/a>, who allowed one run and four hits in six innings of the Boston Red Sox<\/a>\u2019s 8-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels<\/a> on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Wilyer Abreu<\/a> added a two-run double, and relievers Jovani Moran<\/a>, Greg Weissert<\/a> and Alec Gamboa<\/a> combined for three hitless innings for the Red Sox, who have won seven of nine games. The Angels have lost five straight and 11 of 17 since June 17.<\/p>\n

Gray (10-1) induced two of Boston\u2019s three double-play grounders, struck out seven and walked one. The 36-year-old right-hander has six straight quality starts since May 30, a stretch in which he\u2019s gone 5-0 with a 1.97 ERA.<\/p>\n

Though he leads the American League in wins and ranks second with a 2.61 ERA this season, Gray was not named to the AL All-Star team Saturday.<\/p>\n

Angels starter Sam Aldegheri<\/a> (3-4) walked two ahead of Contreras\u2019 19th homer, a 421-foot blast to left-center that gave Boston a 3-0 lead in the first.<\/p>\n

Josh Lowe<\/a>\u2019s one-out solo homer pulled the Angels to within 3-1 in the second. Jo Adell<\/a> walked, and Wade Meckler<\/a> singled, but Gray struck out Donovan Walton<\/a> and Tyler Heineman<\/a> to escape the jam.<\/p>\n

Aldegheri did not allow a hit in the second, third and fourth, but with his pitch count at 88, he was pulled in favor of left-hander Samy Natera Jr., who gave up one run in his first nine big-league games.<\/p>\n

Anthony Seigler<\/a> led off the fifth with a double, Ceddanne Rafaela<\/a> walked, and Abreu slammed a two-run double off the right-field wall for a 5-1 lead.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez, robbed of a potential first-inning homer when Adell made a leaping catch of his drive above the wall in right, followed with a towering 368-foot fly that cleared the short left-field wall for his first homer of the season and a 7-1 lead. Rafaela\u2019s RBI single in the eighth made it 8-1.<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

Red Sox LHP Ranger Suarez (4-3, 2.94 ERA) will oppose Angels RHP Ryan Johnson (1-3, 7.40) in Sunday night\u2019s series finale.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB<\/a>: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Willson Contreras and Romy Gonzalez homered to back the superb pitching of Sonny Gray,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2391],"tags":[12241,24971,537,5,48,1396,16985,76469,10504,2179,1397,24530,56,19,4,3226,1083,20793,1587,15820,51590,409,606],"class_list":["post-743546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-athletics","tag-alec-gamboa","tag-anthony-seigler","tag-athletics","tag-baseball","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-ceddanne-rafaela","tag-donovan-walton","tag-event_recap","tag-greg-weissert","tag-jo-adell","tag-josh-lowe","tag-jovani-moran","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-athletics","tag-romy-gonzalez","tag-sam-aldegheri","tag-sonny-gray","tag-tyler-heineman","tag-wade-meckler","tag-willson-contreras","tag-wilyer-abreu"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116866060324816265","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}