No-No Ordinary Saturday Night: Rays Walk Off On Red Sox

The Tampa Bay Rays turned Saturday night’s game against the Boston Red Sox into a tale of two contests, as their pitchers held a no-hit bid through nine innings, and then coming back from a 2-0 deficit on Kevin Kiermaier‘s two-run blast to take a 3-2 decision.

Both Boston and Tampa Bay struggled to get anything going through regulation, with only Brandon Lowe‘s fourth-inning double and Brett Phillips‘ eighth-inning single the only two getting on by putting the ball in play.  Meanwhile, J.P. Feyereisen worked two perfect innings, followed by hitless appearances by Javy Guerra (2/3 inning), Jeffrey Springs (2 innings), Jason Adam (1 1/3 innings), Ryan Thompson (1 inning), and Andrew Kittredge (2 innings).

The Rays took their no-hit bid into the top of the tenth, but with Jackie Bradley Jr. at second base to begin the inning, Bobby Dalbec tripled off Matt Wisler into the right-field corner to break up the bid and put Boston in front.  Christian Vazquez would bring in Dalbec to extend the Red Sox lead to 2-0.

Hansel Robles was tasked with getting through the home half of the tenth, and struck out Ji-Man Choi and Josh Lowe to begin the inning, but balked Randy Arozarena to third base, and Trevor Story‘s errant throw on a Taylor Walls ground ball allowed Arozarena to score and make it 2-1.

Walls would steal second, which would have allowed him to score the tying run had Kiermaier merely singled, but the center fielder enbded up getting a fastball up in the zone and instead deposited it in the seats in right for his first home run of 2022 and his first walk-off home run at any level.

The Rays will have an opportunity to finish off a series win with a victory in Sunday afternoon’s finale.  Left-hander Shane McClanahan (0-1, 2.40 ERA) will get the start, taking on former Ray Rich Hill (0-1, 7.00 ERA).  First pitch is scheduled for 1:10.