CLEVELAND -- For about five minutes in the sixth inning of the Red Sox’s 9-1 win over the Guardians, it looked like Connor Wong had finally broken his year-and-a-half-long homerless streak and given Boston a 3-1 lead.
He did everything that comes with a Boston Red Sox home run. He jogged around the bases. He walked through Boston’s dugout with the team’s celebratory Wally head on. He got ready to go out and catch in the bottom of the inning.
But all of that changed after replay review overturned the call and showed that Wong’s homer had hit off the yellow padding atop Progressive Field’s 19-foot wall.
Instead of getting his first home run since Sept. 8, 2024, Wong was forced to run back to second with an RBI double.
Luckily for his team, that singular run still ended up being enough for the Red Sox, who have split the first two games of the series in Cleveland.
The Red Sox tied the game at 1-1 in the fourth inning against Guardians starter Parker Messick on a Caleb Durbin sacrifice fly before tallying their second run on Wong’s aforementioned RBI double. Wong’s near-homer traveled a Statcast-projected 380 feet and would have been a home run in every park but Progressive Field and Globe Life Field.
He also did his job behind the plate, as starting pitcher Sonny Gray allowed just one run over six innings before Tyron Guerrero, Justin Slaten and Danny Coulombe finished the game off with three shutout innings.
Things started to teeter in the seventh inning when the Guardians had runners on second and third with two out after a Travis Bazzana double, but Slaten entered the game and was able to get José Ramírez to ground out to end the threat.
The Red Sox’s big late-game blow came in the ninth inning when Wong recorded a two-run single off Guardians reliever Will Dion before Jarren Duran cranked a three-run home run to right field.