BOSTON _ Plenty of big-league teams make pitchers pay for hanging breaking balls, but no team is more likely to right now than the Red Sox, who hit four home runs to overcome an early two-run deficit and roll to a 6-2 series-opening win over the Braves on Friday night at Fenway Park.
J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts hit fourth-inning homers off Julio Teheran to tie the game 2-2. And after the Red Sox got their only run via something other than a long ball to take the lead in the fifth, Matt Wisler gave up a two-run homer to Mookie Betts in the seventh and a solo shot to Mitch Moreland in the eighth as the team with the majors' best record pulled away.
The Braves have dropped three of their past four road games after winning 11 of the previous 12.
They've also lost 12 of their past 15 games against Boston.
As for the power-laden Red Sox, they have 75 homers, the most in franchise history after 51 games. They have a majors-leading 45 homers since April 30.
Teheran was staked to a 2-0 lead in the third inning when the Braves got three consecutive hits to start the inning, singles by Ronald Acuna and Freddie Freeman and a two-run double off the bat of Nick Markakis, who entered the series with a majors-leading 66 hits and National League-best .344 batting average.
Teheran protected that lead for just one inning.
He had allowed only one single and one walk through three scoreless innings, but Teheran ran into long-ball trouble in the fourth when Martinez crushed a 2-2 hanging slider to start the inning for a line-drive homer that bounced off the top of the 37-foot-tall Green Monster left-field wall. It was his 16th homer to tie teammate Betts for the majors' lead, but not for long.
Two batters after Martinez's homer, Bogaerts tied the score with a mammoth homer on a 3-1 pitch, after Teheran threw three consecutive balls and left another slider over the plate. Bogaerts launched it over the Green Monster, over the four wide seating rows atop it and over the large advertising sign that hangs over those seats. It left the ballpark.
The Red Sox took the lead in the fifth when No. 9 hitter Jackie Bradley hit a one-out triple to the triangle area in right-center field. He scored on an Andrew Benintendi sacrifice fly and the Braves trailed, 3-2.
Braves reliever Jesse Biddle gave up a leadoff bunt single in the seventh and retired the next two batters before manager Brian Snitker brought in Wisler to face Betts. Wisler, recalled from Triple-A on Friday for his third stint with the Braves this season and his first relief appearance, gave up a two-run homer to the first batter he faced as Betts moved back into the major-league home run lead with his 17th, another that sailed over the towering left-field wall.
Teheran (4-2) was charged with four hits, three runs and three walks with four strikeouts. After allowing one homer in 22 innings over his first four road starts, he's given up four homers in 12 innings over his past two road starts including two homers apiece at the majors' most-venerable venues, Fenway Park on Friday and a 6-5 Braves win at Chicago's Wrigley Field on May 14.
Teheran gave up only eight total hits in those two games against the Cubs and Red Sox, but half of them were home runs.
The Braves squandered scoring opportunities early. They had six hits and a walk in the first three innings against Red Sox starter Eduardo Rodriguez, but the left-hander struck out Acuna and Freeman after Ozzie Albies' first-inning leadoff single, then retired Dansby Swanson and Albies on fly-outs after consecutive one-out singles in the second inning by Tyler Flowers and Johan Camargo.
