BOSTON — The Rays finally came up with key hit. Then, a few minutes later, the Red Sox got one, too, and finished off a lost weekend in Fenway Park for Tampa Bay.
Mike Napoli drove in the winning run with a double in the ninth inning and the Boston Red Sox completed a three-game sweep over light-hitting Tampa Bay with a 3-2 win on Monday.
“The bottom line is whenever you’re not scoring everything else becomes magnified or exaggerated,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “We’re just not swinging bats well right now. We’ve just got to remain positive and confident.”
The Rays had two hits before finally showing some offensive punch in the ninth when Desmond Jennings led off with a single, stole second and scored the tying run on a single by Ben Zobrist off Andrew Bailey (1-0). Zobrist had advanced to second on the play when left fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. threw home. But he was stranded there when Evan Longoria and Matt Joyce struck out before Ryan Roberts popped to second.
Joel Peralta (0-1) retired Boston’s first batter in the bottom of the ninth before walking Dustin Pedroia. Napoli then hit a liner off the left-field wall and Pedroia easily beat the throw home when the carom bounced high, left fielder Joyce grabbed it and double-clutched before overthrowing the cutoff.
“I thought the ball would be off the wall so I tried to take the best angle to it,” Joyce said. “It was one of those things where you rush and can’t get it out of your glove. Then, when that tends to happen, you try to force the issue and the ball goes a little high.”
Maddon initially thought they’d have a chance at the plate.
“When the ball was hit, I did, because the runner was not running,” he said. “Matty didn’t get it clean coming off the wall. There’s no way he’s going to throw him out on the fly from there.”
The Rays went 1-for-20 with runners in scoring position in the three-game series.
The Red Sox had lost all three of their previous traditional morning games against Tampa Bay on Patriots’ Day, a Massachusetts state holiday.
It was also Jackie Robinson Day around the majors.
All uniformed team personnel wore the number 42 on their uniforms in recognition of Robinson, marking the 66th anniversary of his breaking the Major League Baseball color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The Red Sox had taken a 1-0 lead in the first on a leadoff triple by Jacoby Ellsbury and an RBI-groundout by Shane Victorino. Longoria tied it in the fourth with his first homer of the season before Jarrod Saltalamacchia led off the fifth with his second.
Both starters were outstanding. Boston’s Ryan Dempster struck out 10 and allowed two hits and two walks in seven innings. Tampa Bay’s Jeremy Hellickson also worked seven innings, giving up two runs, three hits and one walk while striking out nine.
Until the ninth inning, the Rays were 11 for 88 in the series, a .125 batting average. And they had been in an 0-for-22 stretch with runners in scoring position. But Bailey blew the save opportunity before retiring the last three batters of the inning, two on strikeouts.
Tampa Bay fell to 1-5 on its nine-game road trip, while Boston won its third series in the four it has played this season. The sweep was its first since it won three games against the Miami Marlins from June 19-21 last year. The Red Sox ended the season in last place in the AL East with a 69-93 record but leads the division at 8-4 under John Farrell, who replaced the fired Bobby Valentine as manager.
Dempster followed that with another outstanding performance. Tampa Bay’s only hits against him were a bunt single leading off the second by Matt Joyce, who was erased on an inning-ending double play, and Longoria’s two-out homer in the fourth.
It ended Longoria’s longest season-opening stretch without a homer at 11 games and was just the fifth homer by the Rays. But Longoria has reached base in every game this season.