Following a series win agains the Atlanta Braves, the Tampa Bay Rays welcomed the Boston Red Sox to town to begin a three game set on Monday night. The night game marked the Rays first AL East matchup of the season and both Shane Baz and the offense came ready to play.
Baz got the ball for the Rays, making his third start of the season. Opposite Baz was Tanner Houck. While the former was dominant allowing just a pair of hits while striking out 11, the latter struggled mightily, was chased in third inning and surrendered 12 earned runs and only struck out one.
Despite Baz’s dominant performance on the bump, the story of the night was the Rays offense as they finally came to life in an overwhelming fashion. The scoring started early as Diaz hit his second consecutive leadoff blast, and third homer of the year, to give the Rays an early 1-0 lead.
The following inning, the Rays put up a four spot thanks to Kameron Misner’s two-run blast to right and Brandon Lowe’s two-run single. The Rays had a 5-0 led after just two innings.
Baz surrendered the only run his the night for the Red Sox on a solo blast to rookie Kristian Campbell. The homer cut the Rays lead to 5-1.
But, the Rays had an answer in the bottom half of the inning and answered Campbell’s run with nine of their own. Here is how it happened, because if you blinked, you might have missed it:
Leadoff single by Aranda. Single by Morel. RBI single by Misner. Ground-ball out by Walls, scoring Aranda. Fielders-choice by Jansen, scoring Morel. RBI single by Mangum. Single by Yandy Diaz. Brandon Lowe walk. RBI single by Caminero. Two-RBI ground rule double by Aranda. Two-RBI double by Morel.
9 runs later and the Rays took a commanding 14-1 lead.
Baz would go on to finish with six innings under his belt. He struck out eleven, walked none, and allowed just two hits, one of which left the yard. Her earned his second win of the season and his ERA moved to 1.42. He has 27 punch outs in 19 innings of work this season.
In the fifth inning Caminero extended his streak of consecutive games with a homer to three and hit an opposite field solo-shot to right field extending the Rays lead to 15-1.
In the eighth, Misner doubled down and hit his second homer of the night, and third of the year, to push the lead to 16-1. That score would hold and with the win, the Rays moved back to .500 on the season.
The Rays totaled 16 hits, 16 runs, 4 homers, and 6 players with multiple RBIs and hits. Hopefully they saved some offense for tomorrow night as Ryan Pepiot will face off with Walker Buehler with a chance to lock up an early season series win against an AL East foe.
