BOSTON -- The ultimate professional, Rick Porcello keeps taking his post every fifth day, trying to turn things around. And in the four days in between, he is relentless when it comes to looking for solutions to cure what has ailed him in one of the most difficult seasons of his career.

Porcello might finally be building some momentum toward the strong finish the Red Sox need from him.

The veteran righty held the Orioles to four hits and one run over six innings, leading Boston to a 9-1 victory that extended a modest winning streak to three games.

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Aside from some short-term gratification from the quality start, Porcello also had a long-term reason for satisfaction as he went over the 2,000-inning mark for his career, joining 11 other active pitchers who have reached that milestone.

“Definitely very proud of that,” said Porcello. “It’s been a tough year but this is kind of a night where I can look back and say I got 6,000 outs in the big leagues and not many people can say they did that.

“I’m very proud of that and a lot of people have helped me and supported me along the way to be able to get through it, to 2,000 innings. I’m just fortunate enough to be able to stay healthy and do it. It’s a nice night and a little side note and a nice little accomplishment.”

Each game is important for the Red Sox right now if they want to get back into the heart of the Wild Card race (they now trail the Rays by 6 1/2 games for the second spot). A more dependable output from Porcello will only help that quest.

And for the first time in nine starts, Porcello (11-9, 5.49 ERA) didn’t allow a home run.

“Yeah, I think it was a combination of two things,” said Porcello. “One, we were mixing speeds and throwing a lot of offspeed pitches which helped out the fastball and two, staying out of the middle of the plate with everything. I think the pitch that [Trey] Mancini hit was down the middle, maybe one or two others. Other than that, we were on the corners and we were mixing speeds good.”

It was Porcello’s second strong start in his last three turns.

“Yeah, the line in the last three have been pretty good but it’s been four or five starts where I’ve felt like myself and I felt pretty good throwing the ball,” Porcello said. “The results aren’t always great and that’s the part you need to have. As far as what we’ve been working on and what I’m capable of doing, it’s been coming around nicely and it’s unfortunate it’s happened this late in the season but I feel good. Just keep moving forward.”

Though Porcello generated just one swing and miss in his 84 pitches, he was able to keep the Orioles off-balanced and limit hard contact, helped by a strong pitch mix that included 25 curveballs.

“Great mix,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “Great mix of pitches. That’s a team that, throughout the season, they’ve been putting together pretty good at-bats. He’s been working hard at it, and looking for information, and trying to clean his delivery. I think at the end, it’s just execution and he made some big pitches.”

Despite Porcello’s tough season so far, Cora continues to have trust in one of his veteran leaders.

“It’s what they do,” said Cora. “Two thousand innings at this level, you don’t do that just being lucky. You’ve got to work, and you’ve got to grind.”

In many ways, Porcello’s season has mirrored that of his team. The first several months weren’t what people were hoping, but there could still be time to make things right.

“Like we’ve been saying, three-quarters of the season, not great for us. We still have a lot of baseball left,” said Cora. “Everybody knows we’re very talented. It’s just a matter of, go out there and do it. He was good for us last year. He won a Cy Young before. So, he can put a streak of quality starts just like Chris [Sale] and the rest of the guys and help us pull this off.”

There is also the offense, which is ultra-deep, and backed Porcello’s effort with a big output on Friday.

Andrew Benintendi continued his recent surge by going 3-for-4 while scoring twice and driving in two. He came a homer away from the cycle. Benintendi is hitting .394 since July 22 with 13 doubles and five homers. Rafael Devers remained scorching hot with two more hits, including yet another double, his 44th of the season. Mookie Betts went deep for a shot in the eighth and leads MLB with 112 runs.

“We know where we are and we know what we have to do, but we also know that there’s so much we can control, so we try to go out there and play our best baseball and hopefully at the end of the season, we’ll be where we want to be,” said Cora.