American League East aces will battle when the host Boston Red Sox continue their three-game weekend set with the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon.

After late-inning magic led the Red Sox to a 6-4 win Friday in the opener, right-hander Sonny Gray (12-1, 2.48 ERA) will start for Boston after securing three victories during the team’s franchise-record-tying 15-game winning streak, which ended on Wednesday vs. the Baltimore Orioles.

“We are (enjoying the ride),” Boston second baseman Anthony Seigler said. “We’re obviously living in the moment, but now it’s onto the next. Turn the page quick and get ready for Saturday.”

It is easy to have that mentality when the momentum continues with Gray, who remains undefeated since April 14 entering a clash with Toronto right-hander Dylan Cease (6-5, 2.67 ERA).

Gray has nine consecutive quality starts, including a 6-1 win Sunday over the Tampa Bay Rays in which he struck out five batters across six innings of one-run ball.

In that start, Gray did not have his best stuff. He landed only 49 of his 91 pitches for strikes. Still, he found a way.

“Just as a pro does, he got through the outing and gave us six great innings,” Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy said. “So it was a gutsy outing.”

Gray is 4-4 with a 2.99 ERA in 16 career appearances (15 starts) vs. the Blue Jays. This season, he pitched seven innings in a no-decision against them on June 18 as Boston lost 4-3.

Seigler became the latest in a long line of heroes during Boston’s hot stretch, recording his first career four-hit game on Friday. He cranked a leadoff home run before adding two doubles and a single, finishing a triple shy of the cycle.

Ceddanne Rafaela also went deep, and Romy Gonzalez’s pinch-hit RBI double in the eighth inning was the difference as the Red Sox overcame losing a 4-0 lead. Toronto broke the shutout bid on Kazuma Okamoto’s three-run homer in the seventh before knotting the score in the eighth.

It was a close call, but with Tyler Rogers unavailable out of the bullpen after pitching in the previous two games, the Blue Jays faltered late and now have lost five of their past six games to return to 10 games below .500.

In a radio interview before Friday’s game, Blue Jays manager John Schneider addressed being in that position as a reigning pennant winner.

“Coming off the year we had, it makes everything that much louder this year. We’ve earned those expectations, and fans expect them to be met,” he said. “You learn to shrug off the noise. I know that people who are taking shots at me … can’t do what I do, and they can’t do what my players can do.”

Despite the loss Friday, it was a historic night for Okamoto. With his 23rd homer of the season, he passed Shohei Ohtani for the most home runs by a Japanese-born rookie in MLB history.

Cease, meanwhile, had pitched back-to-back scoreless starts before suffering a 7-1 loss Monday to the Tampa Bay Rays, allowing five runs (three earned) on seven hits and striking out seven over six innings. The AL All-Star Game starter surrendered his first two home runs since May in that outing.

“It’s on us. It’s not the coaches. It’s not anybody else,” Cease said after that game. “We’re just not playing up to our potential right now.”

Saturday will mark Cease’s ninth career start against the Red Sox — he has gone 2-2 with a 5.31 ERA — including his third in 2026. He pitched five shutout innings in a 6-1 victory June 16 at Fenway Park, where he has a 1.25 ERA in four career games.

–Field Level Media

For most of the season, the Houston Astros have relied on a solid bullpen in hopes of hanging around in a winnable American League West.

Ahead of the second contest of a three-game set against the host Chicago White Sox on Saturday night, the Astros hope to ease the pressure on their weary relievers.

Houston, which won its fourth straight game with a 9-5 victory over Chicago on Friday, sits just two games behind the AL West-leading Texas Rangers and a half-game shy of the second-place Seattle Mariners.

Since May 1, the Astros’ bullpen has a 3.01 ERA, third in the majors behind only the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. Houston had to use six relievers on Friday, though, after starter Spencer Arrighetti exited after one inning because of nerve irritation in his right foot.

Hoping to provide stability, Houston on Saturday will start Hunter Brown (1-1, 4.05 ERA), who’s struggled to find his rhythm in three July starts. An All-Star last season, the right-hander will make just his ninth start of the year after missing 2 1/2 months with a right shoulder strain. The 27-year-old is 0-1 with a 7.98 ERA in July and has failed to complete five innings in two of his past three starts.

Brown yielded four runs on three hits in 4 2/3 frames on Sunday, walking six and striking out four in a 5-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.

Despite Brown’s recent rough patch, Houston manager Joe Espada is trying to find the positives from his pitcher’s latest outing.

“I actually thought his stuff was so much better than his previous two starts,” Espada said. “He was just off, spraying the zone, not really throwing a ton of his strikes. That part was very uncharacteristic of him. That’s not the Hunter we’ve seen in the past, but we’ll go back to work and get him right.”

Brown’s command issues have been at the forefront of his struggles as he has allowed 15 walks in his past three starts, covering 14 2/3 innings. His average of 6.3 walks per nine innings is the highest in his five-year major league career. Brown averaged just 2.8 walks per nine innings last season.

“Just not winning the swing pitches; 2-2s and 3-2s are just turning into walks,” said Brown, who also hit two batters in his most recent start.

Vying for his first win since March 31, Brown will make his fifth career start against the White Sox. He’s 4-0 with a 2.92 ERA in the four previous matchups.

Chicago also will look for better luck on the mound after blowing a five-run lead on Friday and allowing at least nine runs for the second time in three games. The White Sox enter the contest 1 1/2 games in front of the Cleveland Guardians atop the AL Central.

Sean Burke (7-4, 3.20 ERA) will search for his third straight victory in July amid a dominant stretch for the 26-year-old right-hander. Burke is 2-0 with an 0.92 ERA in his past three starts, striking out 25 batters and walking just one. On Sunday, Burke threw 6 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing just two hits while striking out five and walking one in a 3-0 road win over the Toronto Blue Jays.

“He’s just being aggressive with the fastball, and you kind of feel it when he’s doing it, and his confidence in it just radiates,” White Sox manager Will Venable said. “Once he’s able to establish that, he goes to the off-speed stuff. He has the cutter, slider and the curveball working for him in spots, but it really comes after the fastball for me.”

Burke will want to fare better than he did in his only previous appearance against the Astros, when he surrendered seven runs on eight hits across 3 2/3 innings in a 10-2 loss on June 11, 2025.

–Field Level Media