Yordan Alvarez belts 2 home runs, drives in 3 to lift Astros to 5-4 win over Red Sox

BOSTON (AP) — Yordan Alvarez belted two home runs and drove in three runs, rookie right-hander Spencer Arrighetti struck out a season-high 13 over seven innings and the Houston Astros beat the Boston Red Sox 5-4 on Saturday.

Zach Dezenzo hit his first major-league homer and Alex Bregman added a solo shot for the AL West-leading Astros, who won their second straight over Boston and fourth straight overall.

In recording his 19th career multi-homer game, Alvarez improved his lofty career numbers in Fenway Park, where he’s batting .463 with seven homers and 19 RBIs. He entered the day leading all AL hitters with a .354 average in road games.

“You can kind of tell just by the game, the results,” Alvarez said through a team translator, when asked if he enjoys hitting in Fenway.

Boston manager Alex Cora thinks the Astros’ slugger is right up there with the Yankees’ Aaron Judge as one of the game’s best hitters. He even compared him to former Red Sox slugger and Hall of Famer David Ortiz.

“For me, he’s up there with Judge, to be honest with you,” Cora said. “It seems like he likes hitting here. That (Green Monster) keeps him closed, he can shoot it the other way. ... Closest thing to David, probably, in the game. Very, very, very similar to David Ortiz."

Danny Jansen and Masataka Yoshida each had a solo homer for the Red Sox, who lost a series for the first time in their last four.

Alvarez's second shot came off a slider from Brad Keller (0-3) and traveled an estimated 422 feet into the right-field seats.

Arrighetti (5-10) gave up just two hits — the solo homers — and walked one in his 92-pitch outing.

“Yeah, I think I was really locked in,” he said. “Honestly, I got really angry in the first inning, second inning, a little bit. That sometimes helps me. ... I don't think I necessarily had my best stuff, but I think that I was really dialed in using what I had today.”

Josh Hader got the final three outs for his 25th save despite giving up Rafael Devers’ leadoff double. It was his 25th straight successful save opportunity, a Houston club record.

Alvarez had given Houston a 1-0 lead when he sent Josh Winckowski’s changeup over Boston’s bullpen in the first.

Bregman’s seventh-inning drive sailed deep in the batters’ eye in center off Keller. Dezenzo’s went over Green Monster seats in left.

Wilyer Abreu’s two-run single sliced Boston’s deficit to 5-4 in the eighth.

Called up from Triple-A Sugar Land in April to fill an opening in Houston’s injury-depleted rotation, the 24-year-old Arrighetti kept Boston’s hitters off balance by mixing his mid-90 mph fastball with a changeup, sweeper and curveball until Jansen hit a first-pitch fastball completely out of Fenway over the Monster to open the fifth.

Arrighetti, the club’s top pitching prospect entering the season, was coming off his best start in his last outing, when he struck out 12 over six innings, holding Tampa Bay to one run in a tough-luck loss.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Astros: RHP Kendall Graveman (right shoulder surgery) threw off the Fenway Park mound before the game. Manager Joe Espada said it was around 10 pitches and they’ll wait to see how he feels before the next step. … RHP Justin Verlander (neck discomfort) was still expected to make a rehab start for Triple-A Sugar Land on Saturday night.

Red Sox: RHP Liam Hendriks threw his second live BP, this time off the Fenway mound as he continues his return from ulnar collateral ligament surgery last August. He’s expected to throw another on Tuesday or Wednesday and could go on a rehab assignment after that. “Today was better than the other day,” he said. “The other day we noticed a couple of things. We, I mean, the coaching staff and my wife. She pulled up (clips) of how I used to pitch.” … 1B Triston Casas (strained rib since mid-April) continues his rehab assignment with Triple-A Worcester. Cora said he won’t be back this weekend or the upcoming three games against Texas.

UP NEXT

RHP Hunter Brown (9-7, 3.98 ERA) is set to go for the Astros in Sunday’s series finale against LHP James Paxton (9-3, 4.42), who is making his third start with Boston since he was acquired in a trade from the Dodgers.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Houston Astros pitcher Spencer Arrighetti throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)

Houston Astros pitcher Spencer Arrighetti throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)

Boston Red Sox's Danny Jansen celebrates after his home run in the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Houston Astros, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)

Boston Red Sox's Ceddanne Rafaela scores in the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Houston Astros, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)

Boston Red Sox designated hitter Masataka Yoshida, right, celebrates his home run with teammate Rafael Devers, left, in the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Houston Astros, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)

Houston Astros' Yordan Alvarez celebrates after his home run in the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)

Houston Astros' Yordan Alvarez (44) celebrates after his home run in the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)

Houston Astros hitter Alex Bregman, left, celebrates after his home run with teammate Yordan Alvarez, right, in the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)

WASHINGTON (AP) — When the FBI said this week that Iran had tried to provide Democrats with material stolen from Donald Trump’s campaign, it was only the latest allegation of foreign interference with the U.S. election.

The 2024 presidential campaign is encountering a spate of efforts by adversaries to weaken faith in the outcome and potentially alter the results. While much of the attention has been focused on Iran, Russia is still seen as the biggest threat.

The Biden administration has moved aggressively in recent weeks to call out the operations in hopes of alerting Americans so they remain vigilant to wide-ranging, often hidden, foreign efforts to influence their views on hot-button social issues as well as the candidates.

A look at the latest development and broader concerns about foreign election meddling:

Iranian operatives stand accused of hacking the Trump campaign and attempting to spread internal communications they pilfered. They also sought access to the Democratic presidential campaign, but there's no indication those efforts were successful.

Several media organizations said last month they received apparently stolen information but declined to publish it. Politico, for instance, reported that it began receiving emails in July from an anonymous AOL account identified only as “Robert” that passed along what appeared to be a research dossier the campaign had apparently done on the Republican vice presidential nominee, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

The latest revelation came Wednesday when intelligence officials disclosed that Iranian operatives had offered people associated with the Biden campaign information stolen from the Trump side.

The FBI said a few people connected to Biden's reelection effort received unsolicited emails in late June and early July, before he dropped out of the race, that contained an excerpt “taken from stolen, non-public material” from the Trump campaign.

The outreach to both the media and to Biden campaign associates suggests Iran was trying to pull off a hack-and-leak operation reminiscent of the Russian election interference that was meant to benefit Trump during his 2016 race against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The effort fell flat: There’s no evidence anyone ever even responded to the emails.

Morgan Finkelstein, a spokeswoman for Democrat Kamala Harris' campaign, said in a statement that the material was not sent directly to the campaign but rather to just a few people associated with the campaign and that the emails looked like a phishing attempt or spam.

She said the campaign has cooperated with law enforcement ever since being made aware that Biden associates were “among the intended victims of this foreign influence operation.”

“We condemn in the strongest terms any effort by foreign actors to interfere in U.S. elections including this unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity,” she said.

Despite the lack of evidence that anyone connected to the Biden or Harris campaigns tried to take advantage of the stolen material, Trump has seized on the FBI announcement. He falsely claimed on his Truth Social platform that the Harris campaign had been caught “illegally spying on me.”

"This is real election interference, not the phony crap they’ve been trying to pin on me with Russia, Russia, Russia for years,” Trump said in a Wednesday night campaign appearance.

That's a reference to an FBI investigation into whether the Trump campaign had coordinated with Russian operatives to tip the outcome of the 2016 election.

Though the investigation did not establish a criminal conspiracy, officials did determine that Trump associates actively welcomed the Russian assistance and hoped to exploit the help for political gain. That includes Trump, who on July 27, 2016, memorably said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press,”

That was a reference to the 30,000 emails reportedly stored on the private email server that Clinton, his opponent, used as secretary of state. Within hours of his statement, Russian hackers for the first time targeted Clinton's personal office.

One goal, according to U.S. intelligence officials, is to stoke discord in the United States and to undermine public confidence in the integrity of an election that Tehran sees as consequential for its own security interests.

It's also not the first time, either. In the 2020 election, American officials linked Iran to “a multi-pronged covert influence campaign intended to undercut former President Trump’s reelection prospects” that was likely authorized by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and implemented by Iran's military and intelligence services.

Intelligence officials have said Iran opposes Trump’s reelection, seeing him as more likely to increase tension between Washington and Tehran.

Trump’s administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge. A Pakistani man who spent time in Iran was recently charged in a plot to carry out political assassinations on U.S. soil, including potentially of Trump.

Despite all the news around Iran, the U.S. government still regards Russia as the primary threat to the integrity of the election.

The Justice Department announced a pair of criminal cases this month that officials say exposes the lengths that Russia is prepared to go to influence the election.

One case charged two employees of RT, a Russian state media company, with funneling millions of dollars through shell companies to a Tennessee-based content creation firm to churn out English-language, pro-Russia videos, which have generated millions of views. Right-wing influencers linked to the Tennessee firm, Tenet Media, were kept in the dark about the Russian funding and worked unknowingly for a company that was a front for a Russian influence operation.

Another case involved a Russian government scheme to produce AI-generated content on bogus news websites that masqueraded as legitimate outlets.

Speaking Wednesday at a cybersecurity event, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said a “more diverse set of actors” than before was threatening elections.

“They are acting more aggressively,” Monaco said. “They are doing so in a much more polarized environment than we’ve ever seen before. And they’re utilizing more and more disruptive technology.”

FILE - The seal of the Department of Justice, Aug. 1, 2023, at the Department of Justice in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)