Red Sox Win Dramatic Series Over Rays

We have already seen so much drama and excellent baseball and the Championship Series haven’t even started yet. In one of the AL Division Series, the Boston Red Sox stunned the best team in the American League, the Tampa Bay Rays, with a 3-1 series win. Although it only lasted four games, the series provided plenty of outstanding moments. Let’s break down how the Red Sox earned their ticket to the ALCS. 

Game 1: Rays 5, Red Sox 0

The first game really seemed like it would be a foreshadowing for the rest of the series. The Rays started their playoff run at home and stuck to what they were good at. The offense got an early lead, and the conglomeration of pitchers out of the bullpen eliminated any threats from the Red Sox. 

Tampa continued to rely on their young guns on both sides of the field. SP Shane McClanahan pitched five scoreless innings with five hits and three strikeouts and let three relievers finish off the game. However, the return of “Playoff Randy” stole the show. LF Randy Arozarena is a frontrunner for Rookie of the Year, but come postseason time he looks like an MVP. Arozarena went one for two with two walks. He scored three times including the first run of the game, a solo home run, and stealing home. In just the first game Arozarena had seemed to take the spotlight for the whole series. 

The Red Sox looked completely stuck after winning the Wild Card game against the New York Yankees. Despite loading up the bases later in the game, the Red Sox were shut out for the first time since August 17th. The Rays had their way at home, which was especially evident when DH Nelson Cruz hit one of the rings at the top of the dome at Tropicana Field for a home run in the third. Unfortunately for the Rays that wasn’t the only obscure ruling in the series.  

Game 2: Red Sox 14, Rays 6 

The most dangerous thing the lower seed team can do in a best-of-five series is win one of the first two games on the road. This allows them to just need two more wins at home to finish off the series.

The Red Sox made up for getting skunked in the first game by putting up 14 runs in game two. The Rays hoped to have the same success with their first rookie named Shane as they ran out SP Shane Baz for what ended up being their final game at the Trop this season. Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts got things started in the first with a one out RBI followed by an RBI single from CF Alex Verdugo to get to an early 2-0 lead.

Even with the early deficit, the Rays quickly came back thanks to a single with the bases loaded from 3B Yandy Diaz and then a grand slam from 1B Jordan Luplow. The back-and-forth battle in the game established how the rest of the series would play out, and especially how the Red Sox responded each time. Bogaerts and Verdugo mirrored each other once again in the third with back-to-back home runs which would end up being two of the Red Sox five home runs in the game.

CF Kiké Hernández was also a major factor for the Red Sox offense with a home run and three doubles as part of his five hits. The game was not without some defensive plays however, as Verdugo and Rays centerfielder Kevin Kiermaier made web gem-level catches.

Also, shout out to the Rays fan who did his best Jeffery Maier impression to catch 1B Ji-Man Choi’s home run. Game two showed some vulnerabilities in the Rays pitching staff and the resurgence of Boston’s offense. 

Game 3: Red Sox 6, Rays 4 (F/13)

It would be unfair to reduce game three to one freak incident, so let’s see how we got to that point. The Rays scored in the first inning for the third game in a row to put up an early 2-0 lead. Boston came back over the next three innings to take a 4-2 lead with two runs coming from a single and a home run from Hernandez who became the first Red Sox player with seven straight hits in the postseason. We saw more heroics from the young Rays players including a home run from SS Wander Franco and a game-tying double from Arozarena.

There was a bit of controversy on the double as Arozarena ran into 1B Kyle Schawrber while heading to second. The teams went into extras relying on extended outings from their respective bullpens. The Rays threw out nine pitchers while the Red Sox used seven. 

The game showed glimpses of the 2018 World Series game three thriller between the Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers which went 18 innings. One glaring difference was it ended up being the only game the Dodgers won in the series. The 2018 Red Sox were almost impossible to outscore in the playoffs and it took a marathon for Los Angeles to steal a game. 

The Rays seemed to have found an opening in the 13th when Kiermaier hit a one-hopper off the right field wall with a runner at first. RF Hunter Renfroe couldn’t field the ball cleanly and it went over the short fence prompting everyone watching to start making up rules as to what happens next. Luckily, baseball is a very old game so there is almost always a rule to clear up the issue. According to the rule book, it is counted as a ground-rule double if the fielder does not have full control of the ball. The runner had to stay at third and C Mike Zunino struck out on the next at-bat. 

This set up Red Sox Catcher Christian Vazquez to hit a two-run home run to walk off the Rays. Normally teams suffer an unlucky no call or bad call before losing the game, but this instance was more of just an unlucky break. It also reinforces my idea to raise the wall at Fenway, but we’ll save that for the offseason. 

Game 4:  Red Sox 6, Rays 5 

The final game of the series had the feel of an elimination game for both teams. The first couple innings set up a possible pitchers duel with some more great defensive plays on both sides. It didn’t take long for the Red Sox offense to get going though as they scored five runs in the third inning. 

The Rays once again had to battle from behind, and once again had to rely on their two top candidates for Rookie of the Year. Franco hit a two-run homer in the sixth, and Arozarena had another game-tying hit in the eighth. Tampa did everything they could to steal game four late including a clutch outfield assist from Kiermaier to keep the game tied in the ninth. 

The fatal problem for the Rays was keeping the door open just a crack for the Red Sox allowing Hernandez to be the hero one last time with a walk-off sacrifice fly, scoring UTIL Danny Santana. 

The series showed two major things. First, the Rays pitching staff may struggle with a heavy workload. In the postseason every game is a brutal fight for runs and often calls on every arm in the staff to get the job done. While the Rays young staff did extremely well, they could not control Boston’s offense. 

Second, is the Red Sox bats have woken up at the perfect time. We saw glimpses of this when they clinched a spot in the playoffs against the Washington Nationals in the last game of the season and again in the Wild Card game, but they have shown they can keep it up against great pitching staffs. The offense has been what kept the Red Sox in playoff contention throughout the season when the pitching was struggling. Boston is set up to challenge the Houston Astros for the right to go back to the World Series. 

Every series so far this postseason seems to get better each game, which should make for a very entertaining World Series in a couple weeks.