Red Sox dash Rays 6-3
Clay Buchholz pitched six effective innings, Jason Bay drove in two runs and the Boston Red Sox hurt Tampa Bay’s playoff hopes with a 6-3 win over the Rays Thursday night.
The Red Sox took two of three from the Rays – Boston’s first series win at Tropicana Field since Sept. 21-23, 2007 – to extend their AL wild-card advantage over Tampa Bay to six games. Texas trails Boston by three games.
Buchholz (4-3) allowed three runs and six hits. Bay, with 21 RBI in his last 22 games, hit a two-run double that put the Red Sox ahead 2-0 in the first.
Evan Lorgoria had a run-scoring double for the Rays. The AL All-Star has 27 RBI against the Red Sox this season. Since 1954, the most runs driven in against Boston during one season is 29, by Detroit Hall of Famer Al Kaline in 1959.
The announced crowd was 20,823, several thousand under the Rays’ home average of 23,992 starting the day. The three-games series drew just 57,663.
Boston took a 4-3 lead in the sixth when Mike Lowell hit a sacrifice fly. A run-scoring single by Victor Martinez and an RBI grounder from Kevin Youkilis made it 6-3 during the seventh.
Tampa Bay left-hander David Price (7-7), who had a win and save out of the bullpen when the Rays beat Boston in last year’s AL championship series, gave up four runs and six hits in 5 1/3 innings.
Marlins 8, Braves 3: Hanley Ramirez hit a tying, pinch-hit single and scored the go-ahead run in his first game since teammate Dan Uggla publicly challenged his effort, lifting Florida over Atlanta.
Hanley’s single in the sixth off Kris Medlen (3-5) made it 3-3. The NL batting leader easily made it to second when right fielder Matt Diaz let the ball skip by him for an error, then scored on Cody Ross’ double to highlight a six-run inning.
The Marlins salvaged a split of the four-game series. They moved into a tie with Atlanta for third in the wild-card race, four games behind Colorado.
Ramirez’s one-out single ended an 0-for-14 slump and sparked a Marlins lineup that had been struggling for most of the last week, pushing themselves out of the playoff picture.
Chris Coghlan, Nick Johnson and Jorge Cantu all followed with RBI singles in the inning. Only two runs were earned in the sixth, with Braves third baseman Chipper Jones dropping a foul ball earlier in Coghlan’s at-bat to go along with Diaz’s misplay.