Aceves Bags Second Spot Start Win As Sox Top Rays 5-1
It was a soggy, rain soaked affair but a win is a win and with the Sox as injured and skittish as they been lately, the Fenway faithful took anything they could get after the spanking Boston received at the hands of the Orioles in Baltimore over the weekend.
Jun 18, 2013; Boston, MA, USA; Boston Red Sox
Alfredo Aceves stepped into his favorite spot, a last minute and unpredictable start, and put down the Tampa Bay Rays in the first half of a day/night double header that nearly turned into a night/night double header.
While much of New England dodged the foul weather the storm huddled over the eastern part of Massachusetts and dumped, forcing a three hour rain delay in the fifth inning after the scheduled 1:05 start.
In the first inning Dustin Pedroia plated his 40th RBI of the season when the weather still looked beautiful with a long fly ball to center field to score Jacoby Ellsbury.
The Rays bounced back with one of their own in the top of the second when back-to-back walks issued by Aceves to Evan Longoria and James Loney set the stage for trouble. After getting highly touted rookie, Will Myers, to fly out in his first Major League plate appearance, Luke Scott doubled to score Longoria. Even thought Aceves walked his third batter of the inning, Jose Molina, he got Yunel Escobar to ground out into a double play to end the inning. That was the only run the Rays would muster.
"It was an all Boston David Ortiz show thereafter."
Ortiz stung a single up the middle in the third inning to score Ellsbury and Shane Victorino to become Boston’s first player to drive in 50 RBIs on the season. Ellsbury and Victorino were numbers 50 and 51.
In the fifth Papi was at it again, rapping another single to score Victorino to make it 4-1 Boston. That was when the heavens opened up and I’m sure Pedey retired to the clubhouse to play some serious cribbage.
When play finally resumed, Victorino hit a right field corner triple to score Ellsbury in front of a close to empty ballpark to knock in the final run of the game.
Boston’s bullpen foursome of Junichi Tazawa, Andrew Miller, Koji Uehara and Craig Breslow (1 inning each) shut out the Rays the rest of the way and the Sox left the field shortly after 7 pm to clean up and get ready for the next game at 8:05 this evening.
The win kept Boston 2.5 games ahead of the Orioles who had been beaten on Monday night by the Tigers and a simply too good Max Scherzer, who notched his 10th win against 0 losses for the season.