Dioner Navarro’s walk-off single in the 9th inning off of Justin Masterson gave the Tampa Bay Rays a 2-1 win over the Boston Red Sox in front of 32,079. The win puts the Rays back in sole possession of first place in the AL East.
Dioner Navarro raises his arms after his game-winning RBI.
Justin Masterson took over for Josh Beckett to start the bottom of the 9th inning and allowed a leadoff single to Jason Bartlett. With the count 1-1 to Carlos Peña and got strike 2 or so we thought. A ball had come into the field of play from the Red Sox bullpen and the third base umpire called time. Peña ended up walking and Masterson then struck out Evan Longoria. He proceeded to hit Cliff Floyd on an 0-2 count with a slider that slid too far. With the count 2-2 on Navarro, Masterson threw a fastball that Navarro hit over the head of Coco Crisp who was playing shallow to drive in Bartlett from third to give the Rays win.
It was almost carbon copy like performance from last Wednesday’s game from Beckett and Andy Sonnanstine. Both starters kept each team at bay at the plate and gave their teams a chance to win.
Beckett went 8 innings, allowing 1 run on 3 hits and a walk while fanning 7 on 95 pitches. The only non-economical inning Beckett had with his pitch count was the 5th where he threw 22 pitches. Masterson worked 1/3 of an inning, allowing the run on 2 hits, a walk and a HBP to take the loss.
Jacoby Ellsbury had 2 of the Red Sox 5 hits on the night. Dustin Pedroia, Mike Lowell and Jed Lowrie had the others while Kevin Youkilis drove in the only run with a sacrifice fly.
In the 2nd inning, Lowell worked a leadoff walk and after a Mark Kotsay strikeout, Lowrie singled as Lowell would stop at second. The Red Sox couldn’t move the two base runners any further though as Sonnanstine struck out Jason Varitek and Coco to end the inning.
Beckett was awesome all night on the mound and was perfect through 4 1/3 innings.
Josh Beckett was outstanding tonight but received a no decision for his effort tonight at the Trop.
Floyd broke up the perfect game with a 1-out single and then Beckett walked Navarro. He recovered though as he struck out Eric Hinske and Gabe Gross.
Ellsbury led off the 6th inning with a single on a chopper over the head of Sonnanstine. He would end up at second base as Longoria booted a Pedroia grounder. David Ortiz moved the runners up 90 feet with a slow grounder to first base and Youk followed with a sacrifice fly to center to easily score Ellsbury from third for a 1-0 Red Sox lead.
The Rays tied the game up at 1 in the 7th when Peña led off with a home run the opposite way just over the glove of Ellsbury.
Big game for the Red Sox and Rays tomorrow night as the series between the two teams stands at 9-8 Rays. The series record has playoff implications if the two teams are tied at the end of the regular season. The Red Sox will need Tim Wakefield to continue his mastery of the Rays to leave Tampa tied for 1st place.
Notes and musings:
Red Sox @ Rays 9.16.08 boxscore
Jason Bay left the team to be with his pregnant wife in Boston. He got there 45 minutes before his wife delivered a Bay-bee girl, Evelyn Jane at 6:47 PM. Congratulations to the Bays on their Bay-bee. The plan had been to induce labor on the off-day on Thursday but obviously the Bay-bee wanted to get here a few days earlier.
Red Sox OF Chris Carter celebrated his 26th birthday today.
Monday was the 23rd time that the Red Sox have homered at least 6 times in a game, 1st since August 3, 2003 versus Baltimore. It matched the most by an A.L. team this season (Texas-2; Oakland) and was one shy of the ML high for 2008 (Cincinnati-2). The 6 homers fell one short of the team record for home runs on the road, done twice.
The homers were hit by 6 different Red Sox, tying the club record done twice previously (June 20, 1979 vs. Detroit; June 7, 2003 at Milwaukee) and one shy of the A.L. mark.
Jacoby Ellsbury, who leads the A.L. with 48 stolen bases, would be the 2nd Red Sox to lead the league in steals since 1955, the other being Tommy Harper (54) in 1973.
Ellsbury has not made an error in 162 games and 390 total chances in his major league career. In Sox history, it is the 2nd longest OF streak in terms of chances to 429 for Coco Crisp in 2006-2007 and the 3rd longest by games to 178 for Mike Greenwell in 1993-94 and 167 for Carl Yastrzemski from 1976-78.
Daisuke Matsuzaka won his 17th game on Monday to establish a single season victory record for a native of Japan. The Dodgers’ Hideo Nomo won 16 games 3 times (1996; 2002-03).
Matsuzaka’s 32 wins in 2007-08 are the most for a ML pitcher in his 1st 2 full seasons since Houston’s Roy Oswalt won 33 games in 2001-02.
Sox on streaks:
Jacoby Ellsbury has a 8-game hitting streak
Sean Casey has a 5-game hitting streak
Kevin Youkilis has a 4-game hitting streak
Jason Bay has a 3-game hitting streak
Mike Lowell has a 3-game hitting streak
David Ortiz saw his 3-game hitting streak end
