ATLANTA -- Two homegrown National League Rookie of the Year Award winners homered, and a homegrown starting pitcher who was a runner-up for that award teamed to help the Braves claim a 3-2 win over the Red Sox in 10 innings on Friday night at Truist Park.
Then one of this year’s potential ROY candidates got into the act.
Long after 2025 NL ROY Drake Baldwin and 2022 ROY Michael Harris II supported Spencer Strider’s determined start with a pair of home runs, Didier Fuentes, a 2026 ROY candidate, ensured Mike Yastrzemski had a chance to deliver the game-winning hit.
Fuentes came out of the bullpen to begin the 10th and kept the game tied with a scoreless frame. This set the stage for Yastrzemski to begin the bottom of the 10th with a game-winning hit to left-center field. Yastrzemski is a Boston-area native, whose grandfather Carl is one of the most iconic Red Sox players of all time.
Strider, who finished as a ROY runner-up behind Harris in 2022, allowed the leadoff hitter to reach safely in five of the six innings he pitched, but, thanks to two caught stealings and a pickoff, he allowed just one run over 5 1/3 frames. The lone run charged to him came courtesy of Mickey Gasper’s two-out single off Dylan Lee in the sixth.
Tyler Kinley teamed with Lee, Robert Suarez and Raisel Iglesias to give the Braves four great high-leverage bullpen options at the start of the season. But Kinley has faltered lately. The game-tying solo shot he allowed to Marcelo Mayer in the seventh was the fourth homer he has allowed within the past 22 batters he’s faced, dating back to May 3. He had allowed a homer to just one of the previous 154 batters before this rough stretch.
Kinley’s extended woes erased the lead the Braves initially gained when Baldwin snuck a home run past Boston center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela’s glove in the first inning. Rafaela rose to rob the home run, but the ball fell out of his glove and behind the center-field fence.
Baldwin’s solo shot against Red Sox starter Connelly Early was his 12th homer of the season and sixth against a left-handed pitcher. The Braves’ record for most left vs. left homers in a season is 11, set by David Justice in 1993 and matched by Fred McGriff in 1996.
Harris’ fourth-inning leadoff homer off Early was his eighth home run of the season and first since he came off the bench to deliver a go-ahead ninth-inning homer on May 1 at Coors Field.