G146: Rays 9, Red Sox 1

Red Sox   - 001 000 000 - 1  7  2
Rays      - 301 040 10x - 9 12  0

The Rays forced Lester (4-8-4-4-3-2) to throw 111 pitches in only four innings, including 43 in the first inning. By innings: 43-26-16 26.

Matt Albers came out of the bullpen in the fifth after Michael Bowden had loaded the bases and gave up a grand slam to B.J. Upton.

The Rays had runners on the bases nearly the entire game; In addition to scoring nine times, they left 12 men on base in the first seven innings. How many Tampa hitters batted with someone on base? Excluding leadoff hitters (since the bases are always empty), I counted 32 of 37. For Boston, it was 13 of 26.

Marco Scutaro homered to lead off the third. Mike Aviles singled and Shields walked Jacoby Ellsbury and (one out later) Adrian Gonzalez. Trailing 3-1, with the bases loaded and one out, David Ortiz flew out to left and Josh reddick fouled out to third. Boston did not get another runner to second base for the rest of the game.

Tampa's three-game sweep shrunk the Red Sox's wild card lead to 3.5 games, with 16 games to go. The Yankees beat the Angels 6-5, so Boston is 3.5 GB in the East.

Jon Lester / James Shields

Ellsbury, CF
Pedroia, 2B
Gonzalez, 1B
Ortiz, DH
Reddick, RF
Crawford, LF
Varitek, C
Scutaro, SS
Aviles, 3B

Adrian Gonzalez:

We're not playing good baseball. That has to change. The way we're playing now is not going to fly. I don't care if we got a few runs to make it close. We needed more.

Game thread.

Yankees/Angels at 3:30 PM.