Rays 7, Red Sox 5: Rays take three of four from Red Sox, but who’s counting

This entire four game set was a back and forth affair and Thursday night’s finale was no different. The Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox faced off for the final time this week in an exciting game that was decided in the 9th inning.

Zach Littell got the start for the Rays opposite former Rays pitcher Cooper Criswell. Neither pitcher was necessarily sharp, but Littell gutted it out over five innings while Criswell only made it through 3.2 innings, throwing 100 pitches in the process.

Both starters tossed a scoreless first inning, and both surrendered a run in the second. The Rays got a run on a fluky call that went their way as Palacios fouled a ball off his foot and Arranda scored. The ump never called it a foul ball and it was ruled a live baseball. Nonetheless, the Rays scored and took an early 1-0 lead.

The Red Sox would answer in the bottom half of the inning with a solo shot off the bat of third baseman, Rafael Devers.

Not to be deterred, the Rays would score a pair in the third and fourth innings to take a 5-1 lead.

In the third inning, Josh Lowe hit his second bomb of the year and drove home Jose Siri to make a 3-1 game. In the fourth inning, the rays scored two runs on a wild pitch and fielders choice. The extended their lead to 5-1.

But, the Red Sox would come storming back in the bottom of the fifth inning scoring three runs. The first of which came on a ground ball by Dominic Smith. Aranda took the out at first and was unable to get the speedy Duran at the plate. Then, with two outs, Garrett Cooper laced a double to left and scored Refsnyder and Devers. The Red Sox cut the deficit to 5-4.

The following bottom half of the inning, Jaren Duran hit a solo shot off Kevin Kelly to right-center and tied the game at five.

The game would remain tied at 5-5 until the 9th inning. Cleavinger and Rodriguez combined for two scoreless innings before the Rays bats took over. With one out, Randy Arozarena walked to put the go-ahead run on first for the Rays. With Randy attempting to steal second base, Aranda hit a single and moved Randy to third. Then, Paredes hit a blast off the Monster and drove home Randy to give the Rays a late 6-5 lead. Palacios would follow with a sacrifice fly, driving home Aranda. The Rays would take a 7-5 lead into the bottom of the 9th.

And then.... things got messy.

Adam came on for the save and retired the first two hitters. But, a single from Devers and walk to Refsnyder prompted a mound visit from Kyle Snyder. only there was one issue. The Rays had already exhausted their allotted mound visits for the game. Snyder never made it to the mound having been stopped by the home plate umpire, but he did cross the base line and thus after a heated discussion with Alex Cora and a lengthy discussion with officials in New York, the Rays were forced to make a pitching change.

And on came Erasmo Ramirez with the winning run at the plate. Ramirez was able to record the final out on a ground ball back to the mound and the Rays won 7-5 to move back to a game over .500 and ahead of the Red Sox in the standings.