Rays Steal The Game, Series by Jared Carrabis
Behind six steals from Crawford, Tampa takes series 3 games to 1


After 36 innings of baseball, the Red Sox walked away from Tropicana Field with just one win and an uncountable amount of frustrations.

Boston came into Sunday's game against the Rays looking to earn a sweep against the pesky team from Tampa Bay. After Sunday's loss, the Red Sox dropped to 2-5 on the season against the Rays, while owning a 13-5 record against the remainder of their opponents to start the 2009 season.

Brad Penny got the start against "Big Game" James, who has struggled in his past against the Red Sox. James Shields entered the game with a 2-5 record against Boston in his career with a 5.59 ERA. In his nine starts against Boston, Sheilds served up eight home runs to the slugging Sox in 46.2 innings. In his two starts against the Red Sox in last October's ALCS, Shields was 0-2 in two starts with a 3.46 ERA. On Sunday, "Big Game" James finally lived up to his name.

After struggling mightily against Boston since his arrival in the Majors, Shields pitched into the eighth inning against the Sox, logging 7.1 innings giving up two runs, one of which was an inherited runner that scored when JP Howell came on in relief of the right-handed starter. In his 7.1 innings, Shields scattered six hits, walked two and struck out six to earn his third victory of the season.

"He always locates all his pitches," said Pedroia of Shields. "He keeps his team in the game. It was big, getting out of that first inning for him. He kind of settled down."

In the other dugout, Brad Penny didn't have a bad start either. In his attempt to salvage the series in St. Pete, Penny hurled six strong innings, giving up three earned runs on six hits. Penny struck out eight of the 27 batters that he faced. The hefty right-hander tossed 110 pitches (68 for strikes) in his first loss of the season. While Penny only walked two, his strong outing gave the Sox the chance to win this game. Being the fifth starter in the rotation, Penny was not brought on board to be the dominating starter that he was with the Dodgers in 06-07, where he was the starter of the 2007 All Star Game. He was brought on board to do exactly what he did, give the Red Sox six innings, allow three runs or less, and that's exactly what he did.

"I thought Brad really threw the ball," said manager Terry Francona. "It was good, it was strong, it was down, it was over the plate. He got some fastballs for swings and misses. He threw a couple of splits, a couple of breaking balls."

However, the Rays were aggressive on the base paths, making it nearly impossible for the Red Sox to get anything going against the relentless Tampa Bay offense. Behind Carl Carford with six steals, the Rays stole eight bags in total. Crawford reached base five times on Sunday after going 4-for-4 on the day with a walk. The eight stolen bases for Tampa Bay put the pressure on the Sox defense which later proved to be too much to handle. Carford's six steals tied a Major League record.

"I didn't know it was a record," said Crawford. "I was just running. I wish I knew. I would have gone for seven. We won the game. That's the most important thing."

Although the Red Sox had eight hits on the evening, Boston could only push three runs across the plate. Boston was 3-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left seven men on base.

"We were one or two hits away from changing that game," said catcher Jason Varitek. "We hit some balls, we got some guys on base, we hit some lineouts. On the flip side, they got some guys on base and had some balls fall. They were able to capitalize on that. Those things have to go your way, too."

With the loss, the Red Sox have now lost 13 of their last 15 games at Tropicana Field dating back to 2008 during the regular season. The Red Sox tried to stage a late-inning comeback against the Rays' bullpen after Kevin Youkilis connected for his sixth home run of the season off of JP Howell. The two-run shot got the Sox within a run, but Tampa Bay snuffed Boston's hopes of coming back with a run of their own in the bottom half of the eight before ancient closer, Troy Percival, closed out the game with a perfect 1-2-3 inning.

The Sox now head to Yankee Stadium for a two-game set to close out their nine-game road trip before heading back to Fenway Park. Jon Lester gets the ball on Monday night against Phil Hughes, who has filled in the spot in the Yankees' rotation left vacant by the ineffective Chien Ming Wang. Lester may not have had the best start to this season that we all had hoped for, but he's either been really good or really bad in his starts so far in 2009. If Lester can get back to being the consistent top of the rotation starter that we all know he can be, the Yankees will be in for another long night against the left-hander. Hughes hasn't won a game at the Major League level since September 27, 2007, let's keep it that way.

-Jared Carrabis

Final Score: Red Sox 3, Rays 5

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Published on May 03, 2009

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