The Rays downed the Red Sox 9-4 to stand one game behind Boston and two games behind the first place Yankees in the AL East. The Rays lineup seemed to be a bit shifted tonight, as the middle of the order hitters served as the table setters, and the bottom of the order picked them up. The 4-5-6 hitters reached base nine times and scored five runs, while the 7-8-9 hitters collected four hits, a double, a homer and seven RBI. Almost at the halfway point of the season, the AL East race looks like it will be a lot of fun this season.
That Rays lineup looks pretty weak still. Red Sox could have won that game, but chose to use Delcarmen in the 8th instead of Bard. Delcarmen has pitched poorly of late.
Thats where the Rays did most of their damage. They let Daisuke off with a quality start despite him loading the bases in the 1st and giving up 3 runs in the 4th).
Not sure the Rays will be in the race come August if they don’t get some pop from the DH spot (the past 2 days at DH was a guy hitting 083 and another guy with a slugging percentage of 392).