The Tampa Bay Rays scored in four straight innings to beat the host Boston Red Sox 6-2 for their second straight win on Sunday afternoon.
Yandy Diaz, Josh Lowe and Luke Raley all had two hits, drove in a run and scored another for Tampa Bay, which took a 2-1 advantage in the four-game set. The teams will play a rescheduled finale on Monday afternoon after splitting the two games in Saturday's day-night doubleheader.
Taj Bradley (4-2) struck out six over five innings of two-run, six-hit ball.
Alex Verdugo went 3-for-5 with two doubles, a triple and both runs for the Red Sox, who have lost five of seven and nine of their last 13 games. Masataka Yoshida was 2-for-4 with one RBI.
Tanner Houck (3-5) took the loss after yielding four runs, five hits and four walks over five innings. He fanned six.
Boston also committed a pair of errors that helped fuel the visitors' run-scoring frames.
In the third, the Rays broke open a scoreless game on Lowe's sacrifice fly to center, but the hosts knotted the score back up quickly after Yoshida lined a single to score Verdugo.
Tampa Bay kept the offense going in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings.
The next two runs came home on Manuel Margot's lined two-run single to left in the fourth, giving the Rays a 3-1 lead.
Raley doubled home Lowe with two outs in the following frame.
Verdugo lined a leadoff triple to center and scored on Rafael Devers' sacrifice fly to help Boston get on the board in the last of the fifth.
In the sixth, Diaz singled home a run on a ground ball to right, and Boston catcher Connor Wong tried to get Diaz out stretching for second. The throw bounced into the outfield and Diaz came all the way around to score for a two-run play.
The Red Sox were held hitless by Rays relievers Robert Stephenson, Jake Diekman and Shawn Armstrong, the latter striking out three over two frames.
--Field Level Media
Tampa Bay | Boston | |
Taj Bradley | Player | Tanner Houck |
Win | W/L | Loss |
5.0 | IP | 5.0 |
6 | Strikeouts | 6 |
6 | Hits | 5 |
3.60 | ERA | 7.20 |
Tampa Bay | Boston | |
Josh Lowe | Player | Alex Verdugo |
2 | Hits | 3 |
1 | RBI | 0 |
0 | HR | 0 |
3 | TB | 7 |
.667 | Avg | .600 |