BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox decided earlier this week to bump back Ranger Suarez’s start by a day as they look to have the him fresh for the stretch run and the playoffs.

And the Red Sox got the intended results from Suarez on Saturday against the Kansas City Royals.

Suarez was in top form and superbly efficiently, mowing down the Royals over seven innings as his stellar performance, along with a key two-run double from Wilyer Abreu, helped the Red Sox snap a three-game losing skid with a 5-1 win at Fenway Park.

Suarez, who had over a full week of rest after tossing seven shutout innings against the Baltimore Orioles on Sept. 4, used a steady diet of breaking balls to keep the Royals off balanced as he struck out eight while allowing one run on five hits and no walks. He threw 69 of his 96 pitches for strikes and threw his curveball and slider a combined 34% of the time.

“He was brilliant,” Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy said. “(He) attacked the zone, used his offspeed very effectively, got people out front, got in on the hands. He was really, really good.”

The veteran lefty worked around an infield single from Royals star Bobby Witt Jr. to begin his outing and Adley Rutschman successfully challenged Suarez’s last pitch of the first inning to Vinnie Pasquantino, which turned a walk into an inning-ending strikeout.

After that Suarez really started to cruise, retiring 15 of 16 batters from the first through the sixth innings. Only 10 pitches were needed from Suarez to get through the second inning and he retired the side in order in the third and fifth innings. He also got some helped from Caleb Durbin, who provided further evidence of being a Gold Glove candidate as he made two strong plays at the hot corner on tough grounders to get Witt out. Nick Sogard helped Durbin out with some nice picks at first on the plays.

Suarez stranded Pasquantino at second in the fourth after the Royals first baseman scorched a ground-rule double into the Red Sox bullpen. Suarez looked like he barely broke a sweat with a runner in scoring position as he dotted a fastball on the outside corner to strike out Nick Loftin looking.

The Royals got to Suarez in the top of the sixth when Carter Jensen mashed a 386-foot game-tying home run to right field, but that’s all the Royals produced off the southpaw. Suarez finished his outing in style, too, striking out the side in the seventh to strand Michael Massey at second, and he tipped his cap to the rousing ovation he got from Red Sox fans appreciative of his effort.

“I felt like all my pitches were working,” Suarez said via translator Carlos Villoria Benitez. “Like I said before, that little trick in my mechanics helped me to be able to locate my pitches and to be able to put it where I wanted. Obviously, the one mistake that you guys all saw and made me pay for it. But at the end of the day, I felt very good with my stuff today.”

Boston’s offense was pretty quiet against Royals starter Randy Dobnak as he only allowed one run through the first five innings coming off a single up the middle from Adley Rutschman to score Roman Anthony for a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth.

But after Dobnak allowed back-to-back two-out singles to Mickey Gasper and Rutschman in the sixth, Royals manager Matt Quatraro went to Anthony Gose for a left-on-left matchup against Abreu. It turned out to be the wrong move.

Abreu, who came into the game hitting .304 off lefties this season after struggling in his career against them, turned in another highlight in what has been a career year for the 27-year-old outfielder. He laced a double 104.9 mph off the bat to the triangle in right-center field to plate both Gasper and Rutschman and gave the Red Sox a 3-1 lead.

“It feels like these few days it’s been like waiting for a two-out hit, a big swing or a go-ahead swing and had a lot of chances at it,” Tracy said. “Then, we get that swing there, and all of a sudden everybody kind of takes a breath and we started extending in the seventh and the eighth, which was good to see. But that was a huge swing, the biggest swing in the game.”

Durbin added a little more insurance in the seventh, as he rocketed a pitch off the Green Monster to score Sogard, but Durbin got thrown out at second trying to stretch his single into a double. Sogard recorded an RBI double in the eighth as he reached base three times int he game.

Suarez’s strong showing on the mound and Abreu’s timely hit set things up perfectly for the bullpen. Garrett Whitlock was unhittable in the eighth, striking out the side in order, which included Witt, as he threw 10 of his 11 pitches for strikes. Aroldis Chapman pitched a scoreless ninth in a non-save situation to secure the win for the Red Sox.

Anthony Seigler, who the Red Sox just recalled this week after putting Eli White on the injured list, left the game early after a wrist injury on a foul-ball swing in the sixth inning.

The Red Sox will look to take the series Sunday with Payton Tolle on the mound opposite Noah Cameron. Due to forecasted inclement weather, the Red Sox moved the scheduled start time of the series finale to 3:05 p.m. ET.

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