3 wins down, 8 wins to go.
When the teams the Red Sox could face in the first round was down to Cleveland, Tampa Bay, or Texas, it was the Rays that I wanted to play the least. Their pitching staff is very good and they have two aces at the top of their rotation. Offensively, they’ve been known to struggle but I thought they had enough clutch hitters to put up a good fight. Either I gave them too much credit or underrated the Red Sox, I hope it was the latter.
Heading into the series, I thought the Sox going back to Tampa with a 1-1 series split would be ideal. I didn’t think it’d be realistic to expect them to beat Matt Moore and David Price on back to back nights but that’s exactly what happened. They started the series off strong and wrapped it up in four games.
One of the keys to the Red Sox success this season was seeing a lot of pitches and wearing the opposing starters and bullpens down. That’s exactly what happened in Game 1. Matt Moore lasted 4 1/3 innings after throwing 106 pitches and giving up 8 runs (7 earned). Meanwhile, Jon Lester continued his second half hot streak and shut down the Tampa Bay lineup with the exception of two pitches that resulted in homeruns. His stat line was 7 2/3 innings, 3 hits, 2 earned runs, and 7 strikeouts. I believe that his dominating Game 1 performance set the tone for the series.
In Game 1, the Sox got down 2-0 but battled back like they have all year. They took advantage of the Rays mistakes in the field and cashed in with three big offensive innings. Every player in Boston’s lineup got a hit and 7 of them collected at least one RBI. It was truly a team win.
In Game 2, it was David Price vs. John Lackey. Price had been on a roll as of late and Lackey had been dominant of Fenway this season. The Sox hitters impressed again by getting 7 runs off of Price in 7+ innings. The big story in this game was David Ortiz getting two homeruns off the Rays starter. The Sox bullpen was very impressive in this game as they went 3 2/3 innings while only giving up 1 hit. Breslow, Tazawa, and Uehara combined to lock down the win.
Game 3 was a dogfight and you could expect nothing less from a Rays team that was on the brink of elimination. Clay Buchholz went 6 innings while making only one mistake, an inside pitch to Longoria in the 5th inning that went for a 3 run homer. It erased the 3-0 lead the Sox had and gave Tampa Bay some life. The Rays took a one run lead in the 8th but Boston battled back in the top of the 9th to tie it back up. Unfortunately. a half inning later Uehara gave up a walk-off homer to Jose Lobaton and the Rays lived to see another day.
That game certainly had the most controversy. Using Franklin Morales in the 8th inning was questionable and the move proved to be bad when Morales couldn’t find the strike zone. Breslow has been the Sox 2nd best reliever but he has commonly been used earlier in games. Pinch running for David Ortiz in the 8th inning was debatable although I agreed with that call. The problem was, if he wasn’t pinch run for, he would’ve been up with runners on and 2 out in the top of 9th inning but instead it was Mike Carp, who struck out looking. The last call that was debated was not pinch-hitting Xander Bogaerts for Stephen Drew in the 8th inning when a lefty reliever was in. Drew struggles mightily against lefties while Bogaerts has good success against them. Drew had a bad at-bat and ended up fouling out to Longoria.
Despite the Game 3 second-guessing, the Red Sox got the job done in Game 4. Jake Peavy was brilliant and allowed just 5 hits and 1 earned run while going 5 2/3 innings and throwing just 74 pitches. The Rays starter, Jeremy Hellickson, was pulled before he could record an out in the second inning. Joe Maddon showed he was willing to do whatever it took to win the game and he tossed the kitchen sink at the Sox. He used every reliever he had but that wasn’t enough. The Rays scored a run in the bottom of the 6th but the Sox came back and scored 2 in the 7th by playing small-ball and running the base paths extremely well. They tacked on one more run in the top of the 9th and won 3-1, clinching a spot in the ALCS.
There were a few keys to the win in Game 4. One was Peavy pitching very well despite not playing in a game since September 27th. The next was Breslow pitching 1 2/3 innings of great baseball that spanned across three different innings. Xander Bogaerts this time pinch hit for Stephen Drew when the same lefty reliever was in the game. He ended up with two walks and two runs scored. In the end, Koji Uehara recorded the 4 out save and finished it off with a strikeout of the Rays best hitter, Evan Longoria.
I was very nervous about this series heading in but the Red Sox just looked like the superior team. It was an encouraging sign and now everyone’s hopes are up for a deep playoff run. The Sox will face the winner of tomorrow night’s game between the Tigers and Athletics. I’ll be rooting for the A’s in that one.
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