ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Randy Arozarena became the first player to hit a home run and steal home in a postseason game, propelling the Tampa Bay Rays to a 5-0 victory over the Boston Red Sox in their AL Division Series opener Thursday night.
The breakout star of October last year, Arozarena made a breathtaking dash to the plate in the seventh inning for the first straight steal of home in the postseason since Jackie Robinson did it for the Brooklyn Dodgers against Yogi Berra and the New York Yankees in the 1955 World Series, according to the FS1 broadcast.
“I noticed the pitcher kind of wasn’t keeping attention to me. I was able to take a big enough lead and take that base,” Arozarena said through a translator. “That’s the first time I’ve ever stolen home.”
Nelson Cruz also homered and rookie Shane McClanahan pitched five stellar innings for the AL East champion Rays.
Game 2 in the best-of-five series is Friday, with Chris Sale scheduled to start for Boston against rookie Shane Baz.
Wander Franco also sparkled in his playoff debut, delivering an early RBI double that sent the speedy Arozarena home from first base to get the defending AL champions off to a quick start.
Arozarena, a 26-year-old Cuban who’s still a rookie despite setting postseason records with 10 homers and 29 hits in 20 games a year ago, capped another exhilarating performance by stealing home on Boston reliever Josh Taylor to make it 5-0 in the seventh.
“I just focus a little bit more,” Arozarena said about his postseason prowess. “Luckily it’s happening in October, when it means it’s closer to the World Series.”
It was the first steal of home in a playoff game since Javier Baez of the Chicago Cubs did it as part of a double steal against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the 2016 NLCS.
If not for Arozarena’s flashy, crowd-pleasing play and the hitting of the 20-year-old Franco, who was promoted to the majors in June, then McClanahan’s pitching may well have been the story of the night.
The 24-year-old lefty, who made his big league debut during Tampa Bay’s run to last year’s World Series, scattered five hits and struck out three in his first career playoff start.
Cruz, acquired in July to add a potent bat to the middle of the lineup, hit his 18th career postseason homer for a 3-0 lead in the third. Arozarena also went deep against right-hander Nick Pivetta with the bases empty in the fifth for his 11th homer in 21 career postseason games.
With one of the lowest payrolls in baseball and a roster lacking household names, the Rays are in the playoffs for a third straight year after winning a franchise-record 100 games and their second straight AL East title.
Boston lefty Eduardo Rodriguez took the loss, allowing two runs, two hits and walking two in 1 2/3 innings. Pivetta spared manager Alex Cora from having to expend the bullpen by working 4 2/3 innings in relief.
Franco chased Pivetta with his second double of the night, an opposite-field hit to left that sent Arozarena scampering from first to third base in the seventh. Four pitches later, Arozarena took advantage of Taylor not paying attention to him and took off for the plate.
The victory extended Tampa Bay’s recent mastery of the Red Sox.
The Rays lost four straight to Boston before winning 11 of the final 15 meetings during the regular season. And they wasted no time jumping on Rodriguez this time, using their speed to turn a leadoff walk to Arozarena, Franco’s double to left-center and Yandy Diaz’s two-out infield single into a quick 2-0 lead.
Cruz homered off one of the catwalks that support the roof at Tropicana Field, setting off another thunderous ovation from a yellow towel-waving sellout crowd of 27,419 that included college basketball analyst Dick Vitale, a Rays season-ticket holder who threw out the ceremonial first pitch.
Franco and Cruz are the two biggest additions to this year’s Tampa Bay offense, which ranked second in the majors with 857 runs. With the 20-year-old shortstop and 41-year-old slugger in the lineup, the Rays scored 263 runs in 43 games.
The duo became the second set of teammates to each have a hit in a postseason game when one player was 20 or younger and the other was at least 40. They joined Manny Machado and Jim Thome, who did it in 2012 for the Baltimore Orioles, according to ESPN.
Cruz, meanwhile, became the second-oldest player to homer in the postseason after 43-year-old Julio Franco in 2001.
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Baz, an Olympic silver medalist who began the season in Double-A and made his major league debut in late September, will start Game 2 for the Rays.
The Red Sox, who beat the rival Yankees at home in the AL wild-card game to advance to the ALDS, will counter with Sale, who returned from Tommy John surgery in mid-August and went 5-1 with a 3.16 ERA over nine starts down the stretch.
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