ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - This time the walkoff win took 15 innings. The Rays will take it, though.
Andrew Miller threw a force attempt at second base into center field, allowing pinch-runner Cole Figueroa to score in the bottom of the 15th Saturday as the Rays handed the Boston Red Sox their ninth consecutive loss, 6-5.
The win was the Rays third straight in their final at-bat
Boston scored five runs in the first inning off David Price, but managed only two hits over the next 14 innings.
“We won that game because we pitched so well,” said manager Joe Maddon.
James Loney opened the 15th with a single off Andrew Miller (1-4). Figueroa ran for Loney and went to second on Brandon Guyer’s bunt single, Guyer’s fourth hit of the game. Figueroa scored when Miller threw the ball into center field while attempting to get a double play on Desmond Jennings’ grounder.
Cesar Ramos (2-3) allowed an infield single and two walks in three scoreless innings for the win. Five Tampa Bay pitchers limited Boston to six hits in a game that took 5 hours, 16 minutes.
Neither team scored for nine consecutive innings after Guyer’s two-run double tied it 5-5 in the fifth.
“It feels like: ’All we have to do is score one,’ but one is hard sometimes,” said Loney.
A.J. Pierzynski hit a three-run homer in Boston’s big first inning after the Red Sox got their first four batters on base against Price.
“(Price) gave up early runs, but I think we all expected he would go out there and shut ’em out like he did,” Guyer said. “So we knew we just had to get the runs and back him up, and we did that.”
Matt Joyce had an RBI single before Guyer’s double off Jake Peavy in the fifth. Logan Forsythe had a second-inning sacrifice fly and an RBI single during the fourth, one of his three hits.
The nine-game losing streak is Boston’s longest since Aug. 25-Sept. 4, 2001. Boston, which scored just 16 runs in its previous eight games, had just two baserunners - Gomes’ walk in the third and an eighth-inning single by Xander Bogaerts - over the next seven innings against Price, who allowed five runs and five hits in eight innings.
Bogaerts left the game due to right hamstring cramps and was replaced defensively at shortstop by Jonathan Herrera in the 11th.
The Red Sox used a makeshift lineup with David Ortiz, Mike Napoli and Shane Victorino all out with injuries. Ortiz hit a grounder pinch-hitting in the 10th.
NOTES: The Rays beat Oakland in 11 innings Thursday, and beat the Red Sox on Figueroa’s pinch-hit double in the ninth on Friday. … Boston recalled OF Daniel Nava from Triple-A Pawtucket. Nava and RHP Brandon Workman, who will start Sunday in place of LHP Felix Doubront (strained left shoulder), were in Syracuse with Pawtucket and left the team hotel at 4 a.m. Saturday. … Rays RF Wil Myers, in a 2-for-26 slide, didn’t start, but walked as a pinch hitter in the eighth. … RHP Jake Odorizzi (2-4) is the Rays’ scheduled starter Sunday. … Tampa Bay 3B coach Tom Foley plans to keep wearing Rays senior adviser Don Zimmer’s uniform No. 66. Zimmer is recovering from heart and lung surgery last month. “Just to let him know we’re thinking about him every day,” Foley said “I’ll wear it until somebody tells me not to.”
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