Houston Astros at Boston Red Sox: Final Score & Recap

The Houston Astros held off the Boston Red Sox 5-4 at Fenway Park on August 10, 2024, handing Boston a one-run defeat despite a late Red Sox rally that left the DiamondIQ model's pre-game home win probability of 54% at a final estimate of zero. Houston built its lead with a pivotal top-sixth home run by Yordan Alvarez off Brad Keller, a swing that shifted win probability by 20.8 points in the Astros' favor and proved to be the decisive blow in the game's offensive narrative. The Astros added a run in the seventh and another in the eighth to push to five runs on ten hits, while Boston managed only six hits through nine innings.

The Red Sox mounted a genuine threat in the closing frames. In the bottom of the eighth, Wilyer Abreu singled off Bryan Abreu for the single largest win-probability swing of the night at plus 26.5 points, pulling Boston back into contention. The ninth inning produced the game's most compressed drama, as Rafael Devers lashed a double off Josh Hader worth plus 25.1 points in win probability, keeping Boston alive. However, Hader recovered to retire Romy Gonzalez on a strikeout — a play that swung win probability 21.4 points back toward Houston — and Danny Jansen's pop out two batters later, which cost Boston 16.6 points of win probability, ended the game. Gonzalez finished as one of Boston's top WPA contributors despite the strikeout, reflecting how tightly sequenced that final inning was.

On the pitching side, Spencer Arrighetti was the standout performer for Houston, generating plus 21.3 points of win probability across his outing, the highest mark among pitchers in the game. Wilyer Abreu led all position players in WPA at plus 21.7 with a RE24 of plus 1.4, while Devers added plus 17.6 WPA in a narrow loss. The DiamondIQ model leans toward crediting Houston's mid-game run construction and Arrighetti's efficiency as the structural reasons the Astros were able to survive Boston's late charge.