Acuña’s grand slam sends Braves to win at Fenway

BOSTON — Ronald Acuña Jr. busted open a close game and broke out of his own 1-for-20 slump with a sixth-inning grand slam Thursday, giving the Braves a 10-2 win and series victory against the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

“You know, man, amazing,” Acuña said of the feeling of watching his grand slam go over the fence. “I love that.”

Acuña, who had walked in his previous two at-bats after striking out in the first inning, hit his first home run since April 24 and just his third home run of the season. But it was a no-doubter, a 417-foot blast onto the back row of seats atop Fenway’s Green Monster in left.

The grand slam was the fourth of Acuña’s career and first since Aug. 1, 2023.

“Baseball is hard sometimes,” Acuña said. “You feel good, you don’t have results. You feel bad, you have results. But I keep trying every time, I work in the cage with my hitting coach, all that stuff.

“I just keep trying keep trying, keep fighting with my teammates and, like I said before, working in the cage with my hitting coach and I feel better.”

Thursday’s victory gave the Braves (38-19) their 15th series win this season and made them 8-2 in rubber games. They also improved to 31-0 when leading after eight innings.

Acuña’s game-changing homer came in the sixth, an inning that started with the score knotted at 2-2. Michael Harris II dropped a bunt single up the third base line against Red Sox reliever Danny Coulombe (0-2) and Jorge Mateo and Dominic Smith each walked to load the bases.

Greg Weissert came in to try to put out the fire against pinch-hitter Mike Yastrzemski, only to walk Yastrzemski on seven pitches. That brought Acuña to the plate who unloaded on a 1-0 sinker, watched the ball sail over the wall and then gave his bat a kiss before dropping it to the ground as he began his home run trot.

Acuña is still hitting just .238 for the season and his four RBIs on Thursday are 25% of his RBI total for the season which has been uneven to this point because of a couple minor injuries.

“Man, it’s hard, you know?” Acuña said of the injuries. “But I don’t make excuses. I just wanna play hard, help my team win a lot of games, make the playoffs and stay healthy and have fun.”

Harris added a solo home run in the seventh, the center fielder’s 13th of the season. Ozzie Albies hit his ninth homer of the year, a two-run shot in the ninth.

Braves starter Chris Sale was in a fight most of the day with his fifth and final inning being the only one in which he faced the minimum. Sale threw 96 pitches (61 strikes), worked around three walks and six hits and struck out eight.

Sale (8-3) has now struck out at least eight hitters in three straight starts and at least seven in seven straight.

“I felt like, you know, I did just enough to kind of keep us in the game,” Sale said. “I told (catcher) Sandy (León) after that, that was really impressive, because my slider was really kind of almost going the other way today. Fastball command was kind of all over the place, so he really got me through that game.”

Sale began his day by having to throw 24 pitches in the first inning, partly because Harris whiffed on a line drive off the bat of Wilyer Abreu, a play scored a double. After a two-out walk, Sale’s 24th offering of the opening frame was a 98-mph fastball that blew by Andruw Monasterio.

A one-out walk and two-out single by No. 9-hole hitter Caleb Durbin put Sale in a jam in the second, but Jarren Duran chased a down-and-away slider to end the threat.

Ceddane Rafaela began the third with a double into the left field corner. A sacrifice bunt moved Rafaela to third before Sale plunked Willson Contreras in the back. Monasterio, however, swung at a high heater for strike three and Nick Sogard cued a grounder to second leaving two men on base for the third inning in a row.

Sale’s effort to keep the Sox at bay through three innings paid dividends as the offense came to life in the fourth. Matt Olson knocked a solid single through the middle and Albies shot a double into the left field corner against Red Sox starter Payton Tolle.

Tolle recovered to get the next two outs, but had to get through Mateo to get out of the inning. Tolle’s second pitch came right back at him at 107.5-mph off Mateo’s bat, glanced off Tolle’s glove to Isiah Kiner-Falefa at shortstop whose throw to first pulled Contreras off the bag.

Mateo’s RBI ended Atlanta’s scoreless streak at 13 2/3 innings.

Smith, getting a rare start against a left-handed pitcher, dropped a fly ball into shallow left for an RBI single making it 2-0.