Rays Maintain Lead In AL East
St. Petersburg, Fla – Brandon Lowe‘s eighth inning homer was the game winner as the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Boston Red Sox 5-4.
Tyler Glasnow (3-1, 4.47 ERA) picks up the win for Tampa Bay who improves to 30-16 on the season. Diego Castillo worked the ninth inning recording his fourth save.
The Rays have now won back-to-back games following a three game losing streak and will end the night with the best record in the American League.
Marcus Walden (0-2, 9.49 ERA) took the loss for Boston who drop to 16-31 on the season.
Meadows Homers To Leadoff Home Half Of First
Austin Meadows homered to lead off the home half of the first to give the Rays the early 1-0 lead. It was his fifth career leadoff homer and his first since July 18, 2019 against the New York Yankees in the first game of a doubleheader.
Margot Delivers 2-RBI Double
Nate Lowe singed to score Ji-Man Choi to tie the game at 2-2 in the fourth inning and Manuel Margot followed with a 2-RBI double to score Willy Adames and Nate Lowe from first. Margot is hitting a cool .636 (14-for-22) with 5 RBI against Boston pitching in 2020.
Lowe Homers To Break Tie
Christian Arroyo had hit a 2-run homer with two out in the top of the seventh to pull the Red Sox even at 4-4. Marcus Walden retired the first two Rays in the bottom of the seventh before giving up a long homer to Brandon Lowe that put the Rays on top 5-4.
Tyler Glasnow worked 7 innings allowing 4 earned runs on six hits striking out seven and walking one. He threw 102 pitches with 72 for strikes. He gave up a solo homer to Michael Chavis and a 2-run homer to Christian Arroyo.
“I thought he was outstanding. I thought his stuff was really really good.” Kevin Cash said. “The breaking ball was pretty violent. I thought he had better stuff today than against the Marlins. He just got burnt by two home runs but really really impressive outing.”
While Cash gave positive reviews for the outing, Glasnow was not as happy. “I didn’t feel very good. I felt pretty out of rhythm, the first inning was fine. After that I just got way out of rhythm.” He said. “The last couple of innings were actually way better and that seems to be the case for me this year. I just need to figure it out sooner.”
Glasnow had an issue with a cut on the back of the thumb. The trainer came out but was not permitted to put any surgical glue on the cut to stop the bleeding, something that irks Glasnow but he brings up a solid point.
“I called them out there to put surgical glue on it and it helps but apparently MLB has a rule that you can’t put anything on the pitchers right hand or something.” Glasnow said. “So I was just throwing bloody baseballs during Covid so that should probably be a change.”
After the inning the surgical glue was administered in the dugout to get the bleeding to stop. “It just seems like a dumb rule to me. ” Glasnow said. “Especially now with the exceptions and all the weird stuff happening you’d think I just put surgical glue on my thumb so I don’t bleed everywhere.”
Boston put the leadoff hitter on base in six of Glasnow’s seven innings. When they got on base the Sox took full advantage of Glasnow’s time to the plate stealing six bases against him.
The six stolen bases allowed set a single game franchise record. The previous high was five stolen bases against Alex Cobb on August 6, 2011 against the Oakland Athletics. He is the first pitcher in the majors to allow six stolen bases since Jake Arrieta allowed seven Washington Nationals to steal when he was with the Chicago Cubs on June 27, 2017.
Nathan Eovaldi came off the disabled list to make his first start since August 20th. He worked three innings allowing one earned run on Austin Meadows’ homer on three hits while striking out four, walking none, and hitting a batter. He threw 40 pitches with 28 for strikes.
Choi Forced To Depart Game With Hamstring Injury
Ji-Man Choi departed the game with a left hamstring strain after sliding home in the bottom of the fourth inning. He will continue to be evaluated but it certainly appears as if Choi is going to miss significant time. While no roster move has been announced it would make the most sense to recall Brian O’Grady from the alternate training site.
