BOSTON – The Orioles led 2-0 yesterday and lost 19-5. They took a 2-0 lead today in the first inning in Game 1 of a doubleheader, it began to pour again, Jarren Duran homered on Zach Eflin’s second pitch, and play was paused so the grounds crew could spread a drying compound on the field, mound and around home plate.

Players walked to the dugout and waited about six minutes. Eflin returned, retired Rafael Devers on a ground ball and surrendered a game-tying home run to Wilyer Abreu.

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Eflin tried to demolish the built-in excuse for a poor outing by carrying a lead into the sixth inning. The Orioles lost it, and eventually the game when Devers singled up the middle off Gregory Soto in the 10th to give the Red Sox a 6-5 walk-off victory at Fenway Park.

A three-run fifth inning appeared to fuel the Orioles’ second win in 11 games and fourth in 19, but the Red Sox scored twice in the sixth to tie the game, with Gunnar Henderson’s throwing error a big contributor. Greg Weissert tossed a scoreless 10th, with Jorge Mateo striking out to strand two after entering the game earlier as a pinch-runner.

Soto left a 96.6 mph fastball dead-center and Devers improved to 6-for-11 against him lifetime with a single that scored the automatic runner and set off a celebration.

The Orioles (16-34) are a season-high 18 games below .500 and will try to avoid being swept for a third time this season. They haven't been on the positive side of a sweep since June 25, 2016 against the Rays.

First base was open with one out and right-handed hitting Rob Refsnyder on deck as a pinch-hitter. Andrew Kittredge began to warm, Soto faced the left-handed hitting Devers, and the matchup blew up.

“We want him to throw his best pitch," said interim manager Tony Mansolino. "I didn’t see what pitch it was, but you want Soto to throw his best pitch. You know you’ve got Refsnyder on deck and you have (Carlos) Narváez there. We were getting Kittredge up and you’ve got to go through the three-batter minimum. So we were getting Kittredge up to face Narváez there. But if you put him on right there, it gets messy and then you’ve got to go Soto against Refsnyder.

"So you’ve got a really good lefty that’s done it in the big leagues for a long time against, obviously, a really good hitter, but we’re gonna bet on our guy every time.”

Pitch location was the issue.

“I don’t think he’s trying to throw it right down the middle," Mansolino said. "You can probably ask him but my assumption is he’s trying to throw it somewhere else.”

Mateo pinch-ran for Ryan Mountcastle in the eighth and stole second base. The game spun back to him in the 10th, which backfired. And left-handed-hitting Terrin Vavra stayed on the bench.

“He’s on second base, he stole second," Mansolino said "The point was to pinch run right there for Mounty. We want him to run right there. He’s pinch-running with the instructions to go, go steal a bag. We’ve got him on second base in scoring position in the eighth inning. We’ll do that 100 out of 100 opportunities.”

Ramón Urías, batting cleanup for the second time this season and 11^th in his career, stroked a two-run double to left-center field in the first inning after Adley Ruschman walked and Henderson singled. Duran’s seventh career leadoff home run came on a cutter, the same pitch that Abreu pulled to right field for a 2-2 tie.

Eflin, who also had to wait out a 26-minute delay before first pitch, tied his career high with four home runs surrendered in his last start against the Nationals. He settled down to retire 10 of 11 today before Abraham Toro led off the fifth with a homer on another cutter. The Red Sox didn’t have a hit since Carlos Narváez’s double with one out in the first.

"It’s not easy, but it’s part of the job," Eflin said of the start and stop. "Just kind of got to figure out a way to get through it, try to get a dry ball, try to get some dry mud out there. But it’s part of the game.

"I’ve dealt with rain delays and whatnot, it starts raining when I’m on the mound and they call us off the field and stuff. Not really kind of like a downpour and just have us wait out there because we weren’t allowed to go to the dugout. Just kind of wait for the rain to go away while the guys were coming out to put dirt on it, and then they said we can go in the dugout. I’ve never really been through that, but it’s kind of part of it. It wasn’t supposed to last too long. They were pretty reassuring about it being 5 or 10 minutes."

The sixth inning couldn’t have gone much worse. Devers led off with a double on a fly ball down the right field line, Abreu walked and Henderson charged Narváez’s bouncer, tried for the force at second and fired the ball into center field. The lead was down to 5-4 with two runners in scoring position and Bryan Baker entering.

Nick Sogard’s RBI grounder leveled the game, and Baker retired the next two batters on a strikeout and fly ball to leave a runner on third base.

Eflin allowed four earned runs and five total with five hits, two walks and one strikeout. His ERA increased to 5.40.

"I feel great, I feel fine," he said. "Maybe a little mechanical issues here and there, but just trying to find the rhythm and execute my strikes and my pitches. Overall I feel great, no issues. Just trying to get back in that rhythm again."

Asked about the three home runs, he said, "I’d like all three of them back, that’d be awesome. They were all three on cutters that were all poorly executed, so yeah, that’d be awesome to have them back."

"The cutter’s been getting hit pretty hard," he added. "I don’t know if it’s something I’m doing differently. I think just being more stubborn about being north and south and understanding when it’s my turn to throw my pitches and when I need to be in the zone and stuff and blending those two together. It’s frustrating. I’m not happy with how I’ve been pitching the past two outings. But the beautiful thing about this game is we have another game now, we’ll have one tomorrow and the next day and pitching again in five days. I’ll flush it and continue to move on."

Keegan Akin struck out Abreu to strand two runners in the seventh and Yennier Cano retired the side in order and struck out two in the eighth. Félix Bautista retired the side in order in the ninth to end his streak of allowing runs in four consecutive appearances.

Bautista threw 11 pitches, 10 for strikes, but he hasn’t gone more than one inning since his elbow surgery.

“It was a conversation, but we’re not ready to do that quite yet,” Mansolino said. “For me, being new and naïve to the whole situation, it was a hard no.”

The Orioles broke the 2-2 tie in the top of the fifth on Heston Kjerstad’s leadoff double, Emmanuel Rivera’s single and a fielder’s choice grounder from Jackson Holliday. Sean Newcomb replaced starter Hunter Dobbins after Rivera reached, and Henderson followed Rutschman’s walk with an RBI double

Rutschman scored on a wild pitch for a 5-2 lead that wasn’t sustainable.

Kjerstad grounded into a 6-3 double play after the Orioles put two runners on base in the eighth.

Red Sox pitching held the Orioles to one hit over the last five innings.

“I think you’ve got to give credit to their bullpen," Mansolino said. "This is a good team with a good bullpen. They did a great job. They ran out all their best guys. We hung in there. I thought the at-bats were OK. I didn’t feel like the at-bats were uncompetitive, by any means. It just didn’t go our way.”

Trevor Rogers starts Game 2. Mateo is in center field. Henderson is leading off. Urías is at second base.

Gunnar Henderson SS
Adley Rutschman DH
Ryan O'Hearn 1B
Ramón Urías 2B
Emmanuel Rivera 3B
Heston Kjerstad LF
Jorge Mateo CF
Dylan Carlson RF
Maverick Handley C