ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Everything you need to know from the Red Sox’ 3-2 win over the Rays in quickie form, with BSJ insight and analysis:
HEADLINES
Porcello takes the baton: Chris Sale tossed six shutout innings Thursday. David Price followed with seven of his own Friday night. On Saturday, the rotation's scoreless streak finally ended, but there were no complaints about the start Rick Porcello gave the Sox. He went 5.1 innings, allowing six hits while issuing one walk and striking out four. "The way Chris set the tone to start the year and David (Friday) night,'' said Porcello, "I obviously wanted to keep the ball rolling and do my job.'' Porcello mixed his sinker down in the zone, while pitching up in the zone with his four-seamer and managed to stay out of the middle of the plate. He actually recorded more outs in the air (seven) than on the ground (four), but as Porcello noted: "I'm not going to eliminate pitches just because I'm trying to be stubborn and get groundouts; I'm trying to get outs any way possible, and we saw some openings there at the top of the zone so we started attacking it. It was by design, honestly.''
Bobby Poyner happy to make his debut ... and have it behind him: The rookie lefty, who had never pitched above Double-A, got up both Thursday and Friday nights, but wasn't brought into the game until the seventh inning Saturday. He got Kevin Kiermaier to pop-up to third with a runner on first and two outs. "I was super happy with it,'' said Poyner of getting out of his first jam. "It was incredible. There are really not words to describe that feeling. It was awesome." He wasn't as fortunate in the eighth when he yielded a solo homer to Carlos Gomez, but he came back to get another pop-up from Brad Miller.
Homer No. 1 as a Ray for @RealCarlosGomez looked like this. pic.twitter.com/dyB877CQge
— Tampa Bay Devil Rays (@RaysBaseball) April 1, 2018
We can hit homers over the fence too. ? pic.twitter.com/QoJu8b4B9C
— Red Sox (@RedSox) March 31, 2018