They are hitting .303 and averaging 7.3 runs over the past 10 games, scoring fewer than five runs just once in that span and scoring at least eight in each of the past four games. They began the series here Friday by scoring nine runs in the fifth inning of a 9-2 victory.

Saturday was Houck’s first time in 10 starts giving up more than three runs and his first time all season allowing more than seven total runs and four earned runs.

The Padres scored in the second inning without damaging the American League leader’s ERA.

Despite yielding three successive one-out singles, Houck might have escaped were it not for center fielder Jarren Duran botching his handling of the last of those.

With Donovan Solano and Jackson Merrill on second and first, respectively, Ha-Seong Kim grounded a ball up the middle at 102.5 mph that reached Duran quickly enough that third base coach Tim Leiper stopped Solano before sending him when the ball caromed off Duran’s glove. The run ended up being unearned when Sullivan struck out and Bryce Johnson grounded out to end the inning.

The rest of the runs did contribute to the inflation of Houck’s ERA.

It began with two outs in the third inning when Machado launched a two-run homer over the Green Monster — and all the way over the four rows of seating areas beyond the 37-foot wall and out of Fenway Park — to make sure Luis Arraez’s lead-off single did not go to waste.

Merrill led off the fourth inning by sending a ball to about the same spot as Machado’s homer cleared the Monster in left-center but some 20 feet shorter.

A walk by Arrez started the fifth, and he moved to third on a single by Jurickson Profar and scored on a single by Jake Cronenworth before Machado sent a ball 420 feet to a tarped off section of seats beyond center field to make it 8-0.

After Solano lined out, Horn came in to make his major league debut and got Merrill on a line drive before Kim singled and Sullivan lined his first home run of the season down the right field line.

Duran’s solo homer off Padres starter Michael King (6-5, 3.61) started the sixth inning. King would finish the sixth before three relievers worked the rest of the game.

The Padres scored their final run in the eighth when Jake Cronenworth reached on an error, moved to third on David Peralta’s single and scored on a double by Merrill.

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