By Zachary McMahon –
The Boston Red Sox played their third game of the series against the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday night. Entering the game, the Red Sox and Rays were tied at one apiece after Romy Gonzalez had a walk-off single in Game 2 in extra innings on Tuesday night.
Vaughn Grissom had the night off as David Hamliton played second base for the entire game. Dominic Smith played at designated hitter while Garrett Cooper played at first base for the Sox.
Tanner Houck started on the mound for the Sox where he went 5 ⅔ innings, allowing five hits, allowing one earned run, three walks, and struck out seven batters.
Jarren Duran led off in the first with a double, after Wilyer Abreu advanced Duran to third with a fly out to center fielder Jose Siri, Connor Wong had a sacrifice fly that scored Duran home.
However in the fourth inning, a crucial error by Cooper scored an unearned run by the Rays as Richie Palacios would have a 2-base error that scored Jonathan Aranda to tie the game at one apiece.
Abreu had a big homer in the bottom of the fourth as it was a 406-foot shot to right field that gave the Sox back the lead 2-1.
After Siri tied the game with an RBI single in the sixth, Yandy Diaz had a two-run single that scored Siri and Jose Caballero to give the Rays the lead at 4-2. What lead up to that was a double steal, in which Caballero, who was trying to steal third, as he would’ve been out by Wong’s throw to third, but Rafael Devers could not catch the throw, so he would be charged an error.
Devers had a solo shot to center that halved the deficit to one in the sixth, but nobody else would score for the rest of the game after that.
After the home run in the sixth, Rays pitchers Shawn Armstrong, Pete Fairbanks, and Kevin Kelly struck out five batters combined, and only allowed one hit in the last three innings from the Sox. That only hit came off of Armstrong, and it was the second double for Duran in the game in the seventh.
Kelly would get his first save of the season, and his second of his career after he shut down the Sox in the ninth.
Cam Booser had a great performance pitching in the eighth and ninth innings as he struck out four batters, as it is his career high in the young major league career of Booser, as both him and Chase Anderson did not allow any hits in the last three innings from the Rays.
All the batters the Red Sox put in the lineup reached base, except for Tyler O’Neil who struck out in all four at-bats that he took part in this game. This was the fourth time that O’Neil was struck out four times in a game, the last time was on Aug. 11, 2022, when he was on the St. Louis Cardinals and they were facing the Colorado Rockies.
The Rays would win the game 4-3 to take back the series lead 2-1. The Sox will be looking to even the series in the finale on Thursday at 7:10 pm first pitch on NESN/NESN360. Cooper Criswell will be starting for the first time against his former team, as he pitched for the Rays from 2022-23. This could be his last start on the rotation since Garrett Whitlock is expected to be activated next week for the series against the Rays in Tampa Bay. Criswell will be going up against Zack Littell.