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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 13, 2023 14:09:46 GMT -5
Kluber working hard until 4.2 innings gets the hook Blier comes in sets down the gas can and lights it up.
8-3 Tampa after 6
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 13, 2023 14:16:24 GMT -5
Jon Couture @joncouture · 13m You may never see a seven-run inning like that ever again. #RedSox
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 13, 2023 14:18:51 GMT -5
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 13, 2023 15:01:11 GMT -5
Chris Cotillo @chriscotillo · 10m Rays 9, Red Sox 3.
Red Sox swept by the hottest team in baseball, who set a modern day record with their 13th win in a row to start the year.
Boston has now lost 13 in a row at the Trop.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 13, 2023 15:02:33 GMT -5
Red Sox on wrong side of MLB history as Rays sweep them; 7-run inning leads to 9-3 loss
Published: Apr. 13, 2023, 3:48 p.m.
! By
Chris Cotillo | ccotillo@MassLive.com
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Doomed by a seven-run Rays fifth inning, the Red Sox found themselves on the wrong side of history Thursday afternoon at Tropicana Field.
Boston blew an early lead and fell, 9-3, to the Rays, who tied a modern day MLB record with their 13th-straight win to begin the season. Tampa Bay finished off a four-game sweep of the Red Sox, who fell to 5-8 and have now lost 13 games in a row at the Trop.
In a departure from the first three games of the series, the Sox actually had a lead Thursday. Rob Refsnyder got them off to a quick start with a first-inning homer off Jeffrey Springs, only to have Yandy Díaz lead off the bottom of the first with a game-tying blast of his own. After Springs left the game with ulnar neuritis in the fourth, the Sox scored in both the fourth and fifth. A Kiké Hernández fielder’s choice made it 2-1 in the fourth, then a Justin Turner RBI single put the Sox ahead 3-1 an inning later.
That lead wouldn’t last long. Corey Kluber, who had worked efficiently through his first four innings, allowed a leadoff double to Harold Ramírez in the fifth, then Francisco Mejía made it a 3-2 game with an RBI single. With two outs, manager Alex Cora turned to lefty Richard Bleier, who was the victim of plenty of bad luck on soft contact. Brandon Lowe’s RBI single tied the game. Randy Arozarena’s put the Rays up, 4-3. After Bleier hit Wander Franco with a pitch and Manuel Margot plated Tampa Bay’s fifth run on a bunt, Ramírez broke things open with a three-run, bases-clearing double to put the Rays up, 8-3.
Lowe added an insurance run with a solo blast off newly recalled righty Kutter Crawford in the seventh. In total, the Red Sox had just four hits.
Tampa Bay became the third team in MLB history to start its season with 13 wins, joining the 1982 Braves and 1987 Brewers.
Casas works impressive walk
Before the Rays piled on in the fifth, Triston Casas worked Boston’s most impressive at-bat of the season. With Turner on second base and one out, the first baseman worked a 14-pitch at-bat against lefty Garrett Cleavinger before taking ball four and celebrating toward the dugout.
According to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe, the last at-bat by a Red Sox hitter that was longer than 14 pitches came when Adrian Gonzalez had a 15-pitch groundout against Liam Hendriks on April 25, 2012.
Angels await at Fenway
After going 3-4 on the road trip, the Red Sox will return home four a seven-game homestand that begins Friday night. First up are the Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani-led Angels. Here’s the schedule (and pitching probables):
Friday, 7:10 p.m. ET -- RHP Tanner Houck (2-0, 4.50 ERA) vs. LHP Patrick Sandoval (1-0, 1.64 ERA)
Saturday, 4:10 p.m. ET -- RHP Nick Pivetta (0-1, 0.90 ERA) vs. LHP Tyler Anderson (1-0, 4.22 ERA)
Sunday, 1:35 p.m. ET -- RHP Garrett Whitlock (0-1, 9.00 ERA) vs. LHP Reid Detmers (0-0, 5.59 ERA)
Monday, 11:10 a.m. ET -- TBD vs. RHP Shohei Ohtani (2-0, 0.47 ERA)
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 13, 2023 15:04:03 GMT -5
Red Sox Stats @redsoxstats · 15m Red Sox starting pitchers are allowing 2.9 home runs per 9 innings, next worse is Oakland's starters at 2.48 HR/9, league average for starting pitchers is 1.25 HR/9, the Rays starters have allowed 0.27 HR/9.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 13, 2023 15:05:02 GMT -5
Alex Speier @alexspeier · 14m The Red Sox leave Tampa Bay with a 5-8 record, an incredible 8 games out of first place. There are teams with worse records, but because of what the Rays are doing, none that are so far out of first.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 13, 2023 18:12:24 GMT -5
How one bunt play shows the gap between the Red Sox and the undefeated Rays
Published: Apr. 13, 2023, 5:45 p.m.
By
Chris Cotillo | ccotillo@MassLive.com
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- To illustrate the gap between the Red Sox and Rays at this early juncture, take a look at just one play from Thursday’s game.
One batter after Tampa Bay took a 4-3 lead with back-to-back RBI singles in the fifth inning, pinch-hitter Manuel Margot stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs. It was a favorable matchup for the right-handed Margot against the left-handed Bleier. What happened next caught the entirety of Tropicana Field off guard.
On the first pitch, the hulking Margot dropped down a bunt that traveled four feet down the third base line with an exit velocity of 40.3 mph. Bleier fielded it and quickly realized he didn’t have a play at first base or home. A run scored to make it a 5-3 game. The next batter, Harold Ramírez, broke things open with a three-run double to make it 8-3. Tampa Bay won, 9-3.
It was a bit of a cocky play by the Rays, who tied a modern MLB record with their 13th consecutive win to open the season Thursday. More importantly, it was one that worked.
“Pinch-hitter, bases loaded, lefty-righty matchup. Did you think he was going to bunt?” asked Sox manager Alex Cora. “That’s where they’re at right now confidence-wise.
“It’s a perfect bunt, anyways,” Cora continued. “But I bet in other situations, probably, Margot swings the bat and they’re going for a big inning. Right now, everything is good and everything is going well for them. You’ve got to tip your hat because they’re playing excellent baseball right now.”
Cora’s assessment of “excellent” may be an understatement. So far this season, Tampa Bay has outscored its opponents, 101-30, including 26-12 over the last three days. They have beaten the Red Sox 13 straight times at Tropicana Field. Over the last four days, the gap between the teams — in terms of talent, depth, fundamentals, pitching, everything — has seemed a lot larger than the eight games that separate them in the standings. The Red Sox were thoroughly outclassed and head back to Boston with zero good feelings just a few days after sweeping the Tigers in Detroit.
“They’re 13-0 and we’re 5-8.... That’s for (the media) to evaluate,” Cora said when asked about the gap between the clubs. “I feel like we have a good baseball team and we just got beat four times here.
“I think I’ve got to worry about my team,” Cora said. “I knew that they (the Rays) were good but we lost four in a row. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Rays or New York or Kansas City.”
Boston never held a lead before Thursday, when Rob Refsnyder gave them a 1-0 advantage in the first and timely hitting led to a 3-1 advantage entering the bottom of the fifth. That’s when things completely unraveled. Facing Corey Kluber and Richard Bleier, Tampa Bay strung together six hits — with none leaving the bat with an exit velocity higher than 100 mph. Ramírez’s double, which broke things open, only went 87.5 mph down the third base line. For the Red Sox, things quickly spiraled out of control.
“That’s what they do,” Cora said. “They put the ball in play. They hit the ball hard throughout the series but in that inning, they made sure to put the ball in play and good things happen.”
For the Red Sox, the last four days have brought virtually every kind of worry. There have been significant injuries (Adam Duvall and Zack Kelly), poor starting pitching (Kluber and Chris Sale), a bullpen meltdown (Chris Martin), poor offense (the first two games) and costly errors (Bobby Dalbec). It’s possible that nothing could have stopped the Rays with the otherworldly way they are playing. But for a Red Sox team that needs to be much better in the division than it was a year ago, the results spoke for themselves. Enter your email address here to receive the Fenway Rundown email newsletter in your inbox every Wednesday.
“They’re going through their hot streak. They’ve won 13 in a row,” Cora said. “They’re playing good baseball. They’re really good at what they do and they’re playing good. Offensively, they’ve done a few things that are different than the past.
“They’ve got a good thing going,” he added.
Margot’s bunt, while just one play on a seemingly endless list of ones that went against the Red Sox this week, was perhaps the most telling. The Rays were feeling themselves enough to try to punk their opponents and found a willing victim wearing grey.
“That was definitely interesting,” Bleier said. “It’s one of those things that’s only good if it works out. It definitely worked out... I just think when things are going that well, everything works in your favor.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 13, 2023 18:15:45 GMT -5
Four-game sweep much more about how well the Rays are playing than about the Red Sox By Peter Abraham Globe Staff,Updated April 13, 2023, 1 hour ago
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Rays ran a “Senior Prom” special for their Thursday afternoon game against the Red Sox, selling discount tickets to older folks.
A crowd of 21,175 — huge by Rays standards — turned out, including a 106-year-old woman named Agnes. She announced, “Play Ball” before the first pitch.
Not even Agnes has seen anything like what followed.
The Rays won again, beating the Red Sox, 9-3, to finish a four-game sweep and improve to 13-0 on the season.
Tampa Bay tied the 1987 Brewers and 1982 Braves for the best starts in modern history. The record belongs to the 1884 St. Louis Maroons, who were 20-0 before finishing 94-19-1.
It’s incredible what the Rays are doing. They have somehow hit more home runs (32) than they have allowed runs (30). They’ve also outscored opponents by an average of 5.5 runs and have trailed after only six innings all season.
One of them was Thursday, when the Red Sox led, 2-1, after the fourth inning. They went up, 3-1, in the fifth before the Rays scored seven runs in the bottom of the inning.
“It just snowballed,” second baseman Christian Arroyo said.
The Sox had a sketchy roster to start the season and have since lost Adam Duvall to a broken wrist and were without Masataka Yoshida for a second consecutive day because of a sore hamstring.
They also decided to give Rafael Devers a day off after he started the first 12 games and played all but one inning.
But this series had much more to do with how well the Rays are playing. Devers, Duvall, and Yoshida might not have made much of a difference.
“Right now they’re playing great baseball,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “They’re playing good defense, running well on the bases, pitching well. They are who they are right now.”
It goes beyond this season for the Rays when it comes to playing the Red Sox. The Sox have lost 13 in a row at the Trop and are 18-34 against the Rays overall since 2020.
They’ve become the Washington Generals under the dingy dome. The Rays should chase them around with a water bucket full of confetti.
The fifth inning was tortuous.
After Corey Kluber allowed the first run of the inning, Cora went to Richard Bleier, the only lefthander in his bullpen, to face lefthanded-hitting Brandon Lowe with two outs and two on.
It was an obvious move. But Lowe grounded an RBI single into center. Randy Arozarena also slapped the ball on the turf for another run.
Bleier then hit Wander Franco to load the bases.
With a 4-3 lead and his team riding high, Rays manager Kevin Cash had pinch hitter Manuel Margot try a surprise two-out squeeze bunt.
Everything the Rays do works, and that did, too, as Margot deftly placed the ball to the left side of the mound and Bleier had no play.
“That’s where they’re at right now confidence-wise,” Cora said.
Harold Ramirez then cleared the bases with a double. With two outs, the Rays put five straight men on base and the old-timers were dancing in the aisles.
“That’s what they do, they put the ball in play,” Cora said.
That big rally essentially ended a road trip that saw the Sox seemingly build momentum with three wins in Detroit before throwing it all away with four losses against the Rays.
“Less than ideal,” said Kluber, who has allowed 10 earned runs over 13 innings.
At 5-8, the Sox already are eight games out of first place with the Angels at Fenway Park for a four-game series starting Friday night.
The Angels have won their last two games and had Thursday off in Boston. They also have Shohei Ohtani set to pitch on Monday.
“We have to turn the page,” Cora said. “That’s the most important thing.”
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 13, 2023 18:17:36 GMT -5
RED SOX NOTEBOOK In a game of adjustments, Triston Casas has been struggling so far By Julian McWilliams Globe Staff,Updated April 13, 2023, 2 hours ago
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Triston Casas looks lost. Both in the field and at the plate.
The game has sped up for the 23-year-old. That’s normal for a young player such as Casas, in his first full big-league season after making his debut last September.
The Sox essentially handed Casas the keys to first base after designating Eric Hosmer for assignment during the offseason. But after going 0 for 3 with a walk in Thursday’s 9-3 loss to the Rays, Casas is batting .132 (5 for 38). He also entered Thursday a minus-2 defensive runs saved, tied for worst among first basemen.
Has there been a learning curve for the very confident Casas? He thinks so.
“Baseball is a game of random,” Casas said Thursday morning. “The same situation never really pops up twice in the same game. It’s such a rarity when it does happen, it’s almost surprising. So learning those things, and as I get more experience in the league that will definitely help me.”
Casas said pitchers are attacking him differently this year. Rarely do they double up on pitches or location. As he put it, there has been more variance in his at-bats.
Casas, known for his keen eye at the plate, has just three walks in 13 games. Thursday’s was his first since the second game of the season; it came on a 14-pitch plate appearance, and helped lead to a run.
“They’re expanding the zone at the right times and setting up different pitches with the right ones and getting me to chase,” Casas said. “They’re really executing their pitches.
“I think it’s early in the season. I’m still getting a feel for myself, for what I’m trying to accomplish at the plate.”
Will that fourth-inning walk help get Casas going? Time will tell.
“I’m just going to try to go out there and fail with the right intention,” he said. “Try to figure out a way to put the ball in play more and I know I will do it.” Kelly goes on injured list
Righthander Zack Kelly was placed on the injured list with right elbow pain, and Kutter Crawford was recalled from Triple A Worcester. Crawford will pitch out of the bullpen after beginning the season in the rotation, making two starts.
Kelly left Wednesday night’s game in the fifth inning after hitting Yandy Díaz with a pitch. He was visibly emotional as he walked off the mound with trainer Brandon Henry and manager Alex Cora. Kelly will undergo further imaging on his elbow Friday in Boston.
Crawford had been optioned to Triple A Tuesday. Cora said the plan was to keep him stretched out with Worcester to maintain depth in the rotation in case of injury.
That has changed, but perhaps not for long. With Brayan Bello (forearm) returning soon and James Paxton (hamstring) behind Bello, the Sox will have to shift two pitchers from the rotation to the bullpen. They could then option Crawford back to Worcester, where he can resume his role as a starter.
Lots more lefties
The Red Sox open up a four-game set against the Angels at Fenway Friday evening and will face three more lefthanded starters: Patrick Sandoval (opposed by Tanner Houck Friday), Tyler Anderson (vs. Nick Pivetta Saturday), and Reid Detmers (vs. Garrett Whitlock Sunday). The streak breaks Monday, but unfortunately for them, the break is Shohei Ohtani. The Red Sox starter for Monday is still to be determined, likely either Chris Sale or Bello. If they go with Bello, Sale would pitch in Tuesday’s series opener against the Twins . . . Masataka Yoshida, who missed the last two games against Tampa with a tight hamstring, should be a go for Friday.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 14, 2023 4:10:52 GMT -5
Boston's early lead comes undone in 7-run 5th April 13th, 2023 Ian Browne
Ian Browne @ianmbrowne
ST. PETERSBURG -- Early on, there were signs of encouragement. Maybe, just maybe, this could be a happy flight home for the Red Sox, who led by two runs halfway through Thursday afternoon’s finale against the Rays.
And then, that roof above Tropicana Field again felt to the Red Sox like it was caving in on them in what wound up a 9-3 defeat on getaway day.
The feeling Boston experienced while giving up seven runs in a game-turning bottom of the fifth has become an all too familiar one. The Red Sox have lost their last 13 games at the Trop, dating back to April 23, 2022.
The Rays? They extended their season-opening winning streak to 13 games, matching the 1982 Braves and ‘87 Brewers for the longest since '01.
Don’t expect the Red Sox (5-8) to be sad about not being around on Friday night when the Rays try to break the record. Getting out of Tropicana Field had to feel like a relief for a Boston team that will open a four-game series against the Angels at Fenway on Friday night.
“Disappointed,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “This is a place that obviously we want to come in here and win, right? They play in our division and we haven’t done that. Just got to be ready for tomorrow. That’s the most important thing. I don’t know when we come back, but when we come back, we’ve got to win games.”
Fortunately for the Sox, 143 days will pass until Labor Day. That is when Cora’s squad gets its next chance to disprove the notion that Tropicana Field is its house of horrors.
“Listen, there’s no excuse,” said second baseman Christian Arroyo. “They’re playing good baseball right now and good things are happening. There’s not really much to say. They’re a good baseball team. They pitch when they need to pitch. They put the ball in play when they need to put the ball in play. They drive guys in when they need to drive guys in. That’s all the characteristics of a good baseball team.”
Might the Red Sox be capable of showing those same characteristics?
“I mean, we showed a glimpse of it already,” said Arroyo. “First series against Baltimore, we showed that our offense can do what they do and put up crooked numbers and stuff. Against Detroit, we swept. First game here was a well-played game from both ends. Give up the homer in the eighth inning, you lose 1-0. What are you going to do? It’s frustrating. We come in here, we want to take it to them and have a successful road trip, but that’s just how it went. Seven-run fifth.”
Yes, that seven-run fifth. What an odd inning that was. It started with a 77 mph double off the bat of Harold Ramírez. With two on and one out and the lead down to a run, Cora went to Richard Bleier for a left-on-left matchup against Brandon Lowe. Of course, Lowe got just enough of a 91 mph single to bounce it into center and tie the game. Of the six hits the Rays had in the inning, only one was classified as a hard-hit ball.
A half inning that starts with a 3-1 lead typically doesn’t end with an 8-3 deficit. But such is life right now for the Red Sox and the Rays.
“At the end of the day, I didn’t get the job done, so it doesn’t really matter how the result happened,” said Bleier. “I need to do better than that, obviously, but as a ground-ball pitcher, and getting ground balls, sometimes they just don’t translate to outs like we all hoped they would. And they’re just playing really good baseball right now. It seems like everything is going their way.”
As for the Red Sox, they’ve been erratic. After taking two of three from the Orioles to open the season -- putting up nine runs in each of the three games -- they followed by getting swept at home by the Pirates. Then Boston did the sweeping in Detroit. The brooms came out again at Tropicana Field, but not in the way the Red Sox desired. Get the latest from the Red Sox
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“Less than ideal,” starter Corey Kluber said of the events that transpired the past four days. “Got another series starting tomorrow and have an opportunity to turn it around.”
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Apr 14, 2023 11:40:31 GMT -5
The 7-run inning so weird, you can’t help but marvel how the Red Sox got here Whatever quality the unbeaten Rays have, the Red Sox at the moment appear to have the exact opposite.
By Jon Couture April 14, 2023 | 10:40 AM
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COMMENTARY
Advance warning: I only want to talk about that fifth inning today. In fact, I can not imagine talking about anything but that fifth inning.
“It’s frustrating,” Christian Arroyo told reporters after Thursday’s 9-3 loss to the 13-0 Rays was done. “We want to come in here and take at least two of them and have a successful road trip. But that’s how it went.
“Seven-run fifth.”
Seven-run fifth. If an average seven-run fifth exists, this was most decidedly not that.
There were worse innings just on Thursday around Major League Baseball. The Twins beat the Yankees slightly more often than the Red Sox win at Tropicana Field — Boston’s lost 13 straight and 20 of 23 at the St. Pete Pinball Machine after these last four running. Despite that, Minnesota hung nine in the first inning at Yankee Stadium, with three straight homers and another three rockets.
And as seven-run innings go, we’re still in the statute of limitations to talk about the Double-A Rocket City Trash Pandas giving up that many to lose a no-hitter via six walks and three hit batters.
“We have a saying that you’ve heard many times: Stuff happens. And it happened,” Rocket City coach Dann Bilardello told The Athletic. “You’ve just gotta move on.”
The Red Sox will. They have a pretty big weekend ahead, facing Shohei Ohtani and the Angels while we commemorate all that 2013 entailed. (You’ll have to pay extra to watch Friday’s game via Apple TV+, which is a heck of an ask after Thursday’s.)
Stuff most certainly happened to them in the fifth inning Thursday. But it wasn’t six missiles, and it wasn’t a parade of pitching gaffes. Nor was it simply what it appears from 1,000 miles up: The best team in baseball, facing a breathtakingly thin lineup, and simply overwhelming it.
For one thing, that lineup was leading the Rays, who hadn’t trailed at the end of an inning at home until the Red Sox took a 2-1 lead in the fourth they built to 3-1 in their half of the fifth for Corey Kluber.
Any nine can beat any other on any one day. It’s the nature of the sport. These Red Sox lost, 1-0, on Monday, hung around most of Wednesday . . . a sweep is a sweep, but there was something here that is somehow both notable and meaningless in the face of, well, of a seven-run fifth.
Even with the understanding our existence is based on an incomprehensible parade of flaps of butterfly wings, the parade of events in the next 11 batters is quite a mix. Harold Ramírez, who hit doubles off both Kluber and Richard Bleier, began down two strikes and just about chased a curveball away in the dirt before he tucked an up-and-in Kluber miss inside the left-field line.
Kluber threw a fastball off the knob of Francisco Mejía’s bat to get him 0-2, then gave up an RBI single on a pitch Mejia hit one-handed because it was shin-high and well outside. A dreadful break, but again Kluber had missed his spot, which continued even as he got Yandy Díaz to fly out.
It made the decision to pull him for Bleier and a lefty-lefty matchup easy to understand, despite seven strikeouts, despite having struck out the next batter (Brandon Lowe) all five times he’d faced him in his career, and despite being one out from qualifying for a win. Kluber was lucky to get that close to out of it.
Bleier was not lucky. We can debate whether he was particularly good, or whether Alex Cora should’ve gotten a righty warming faster. The fact remains a pitcher whose stock and trade is getting ground balls got four of them in pursuit of one out. Their expected batting averages, based on launch angle and exit velocity: .110, .380, .240, .230.
All four scored runs.
When Bleier caught too much of the inner half with a first-pitch sinker, Brandon Lowe four-hopped it past a diving Arroyo to make it 3-3. Thus ended the lefty-lefty dream, but it’s not as though any of the ensuing bats overwhelmed him. When he got Randy Arozarena to two strikes, he gave him the same type of pitch Mejía got — shin-high and away. A pitch pitchers want chased.
Arozarena one-hand pushed it into right, Arroyo pulled closer to second for a possible force. Three runs, 4-3.
Bleier got a strike on Wander Franco, then hit him. Tampa pinch-hit former Sox farmhand Manuel Margot, another righty who was 0-for-7 in the series before Thursday.
Bunt single without a throw, to which NESN’s Kevin Youkilis had muttered “no way” before Bleier had even fielded it. Four runs, 5-3.
“I mean, did you think he was going to bunt?,” Cora told reporters when asked if his team had anticipated it. “That’s where they are, confidence-wise.”
It brought up Ramírez again, this time with the bases loaded. Again, he got a pitch off the plate. Again, he chased it. Again, it was a double just inside the line, this one two-hopped under a diving Bobby Dalbec — at third base with Rafael Devers given the day off.
Seven runs, 8-3.
“Holy mackerel,” NESN’s Dave O’Brien declared.
“It escalated quickly,” Will Flemming said on Red Sox radio, his pregame declaration of the continuing “Nightmare on 16th Street” fulfilled.
“We’ve come up with some timely hitting. That might have been the most timely to date,” Rays manager Kevin Cash told reporters. “But we got momentum, and it seemed like it was just going to continue to roll.”
What’s there to say? The season’s two weeks old and Cora had a 3-4-5 of Rob Refsnyder (who homered), Triston Casas (who’s 5 for 38), and Dalbec (who probably shouldn’t be here). Yet, as the Globe’s Peter Abraham smartly noted, would Devers, Adam Duvall, and Masataka Yoshida (who missed the last two games with a tight hamstring) really have made a difference?
Tampa easily leads the majors with 32 homers in 13 games, then scored seven without even sniffing one in that inning. They aren’t going to do that all season because no one does. All the talk of the 1987 Brewers, who (along with the 1982 Braves) also started 13-0, fails to note the other interesting thing about them.
Two weeks later, they lost 12 in a row. After a 6-18 May, they were never better than third the rest of the year.
That’s irrelevant to our story, of course, not least because these Rays have a higher ceiling. (Sports Illustrated tabbed the ’87 Brewers for last place.) We have years and years of evidence that there is something magic in MLB’s most terrible ballpark. (Trust me: If the Red Sox played there, you wouldn’t go either.)
Whatever the Rays do, they make it work. Then and now.
At the moment, the exact opposite feels true for these Red Sox. Above and beyond their flawed roster, their lack of luck outside of one dropped fly ball against Baltimore, their whatever the opposite of positive momentum is.
“We have to turn the page,” Cora told reporters, the beard looking particularly gray for April 13. “That’s the most important thing.”
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