The Red Sox first win of the season was also a statement. Embarrassed over the weekend by the Orioles, the Red Sox gathered themselves and pounded one of their chief tormentors in recent season, beating the Tampa Bay Rays with a resounding 11-2 decision.
Nick Pivetta picked up the win with five shutout innings and the Sox bats, so quiet in their sweep to Baltimore, erupted for 16 hits, with every member of the lineup except one collecting at least one hit.
J.D. Martinez supplied a three-run homer and Xander Bogaerts had a four-hit night as the Sox snapped Tampa Bay's eight-game winning streak at Fenway.
WHO: Red Sox (0-3) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (2-1)
WHEN: 7:10
WHERE: Fenway Park
SEASON SERIES TO DATE: 0-0
STARTING PITCHERS: RHP Nick Pivetta vs. RHP Michael Wacha
TV/RADIO: NESN, ESPN; WEEI-FM
LINEUPS
RAYS
Tsutsugo 1B
Meadows DH
Arozarena LF
Lowe 2B
Margot RF
Wendle 3B
Adames SS
Kiermaier CF
Zunino C
RED SOX
Hernandez 2B
Verdugo CF
Martinez DH
Bogaerts SS
Devers 3B
Vazquez C
Gonzalez 1B
Renfroe RF
Cordero LF
IN-GAME OBSERVATIONS:
B6: Old friend Chris Mazza, facing his former team, is struggling, having thrown six straight balls.
T6: That's the beauty of a sinkerballer, as Matt Andriese wiggles out of a first-and-second, one-out mess with an inning-ending double play.
B5: Oppo double for Xander Bogaerts off the bullpen wall, scoring Martinez from first. Bogaerts took third on the throw and when Mike Zunino's throw sailed into LF, Bogaerts trotted home.
T5: A 22-pitch inning for Pivetta, but he gets out of a second-and-third, one-out jam. Four walks in five innings (and 91 pitches) are both too many, but he battled out of some jams nicely.
B4: Second RBI of the night for Cordero, who grounds to first as Marwin Gonzalez, off on contact, scores from third.
B4: Hunter Renfroe is robbed of extra bases by his former teammate, Randy Arozarena, who launches himself into the air and snares a line drive in right. What a catch. Still, good enough for a sacrifice fly and the Sox are up 2-0.
T4: I'll say this for Pivetta. He works at a brisk pace.
B2: First lead of the season for the Red Sox, who go up 1-0 on a wall-scraping double from Franchy Cordero. Nice, inside-out swing.
T2: Three walks to the first eight hitters is not a good sign for Pivetta.
B1: What a rocket by J.D. Martinez, who drills a line drive off the center field wall on the fly. But the ball is hit so hard, with such a bog carom, that he'd held to a very long, hard-hit single. Martinez's ball was hit at 105.9 mph and hit 392 feet.
T1: Nick Pivetta battles a wild stretch, with seven straight balls thrown and back-to-back walks, but comes back from behind in the count 2-0 to Manuel Margot and strikes him out to strand two.
PRE-GAME STATS: The Red Sox are hoping to avoid their first 0-4 start since 2011, when they began the year 0-6....They haven't begun the year with four season-opening losses at home since 1994.......Marwin Gonzalez made his fourth start at as many positions with a chance to play first Monday night. So far, Gonzalez has started at second base, left, third base and now first base....Matt Barnes is one appearance away from tying Cy Young for ninth-most games pitches in franchise history. Young pitched in 327 games with the Sox....The three-game set with the Rays marks the last meeting between the clubs until June 22, when they meet at Tropicana Field...The Rays are 13-1 in their last 14 games at Fenway....The Sox are just 1-5-2 in their last eight series with Tampa Bay....The Red Sox are the only team in the game to not allow a homer through the first series. Last year, they led all of MLB in homers allowed with 98 in 60 games...The Sox walked just three batters in their first two games then walked eight on Sunday....Pivetta has faced just two members of the Rays before: Manuel Margot (1-for-7) and Francisco Mejia (0-for-1)....Meanwhile, Kiké Hernández is 4-for-9 with a homer against Michael Wacha and J.D. Martinez is 0-for-5...
NOTES:
- Eduardo Rodriguez was scheduled to throw another bullpen at Fenway Park before the Sox make a determination on when he might be activated. "I believe we'll make a decision tonight, or at the latest, (Tuesday),'' said Alex Cora. "But the fact that he's throwing a bullpen (means) things trending the right way and he should be OK. This is the last hurdle. Let's see how he feels about this one and how we feel about it and we'll make a decision.''
- J.D. Martinez did some video work with Bobby Dalbec (0-for-10, five strikeouts) Sunday. "He's hungry. He wants to learn,'' said Martinez of Dalbec. "For the past two years, always been kind of talking, trying to pick my brain about certain situations. We talked (Sunday) about his swing and about his hips. I showed it to him in the video and it was such a big difference. So he's going to be working on the stuff today, what we talked about. All I can do is show him what I see and hopefully its kind of resonates with him and he kind of has a good idea of what he wants to do now.'' Martinez saw Dalbec make big strides in spring training. "I was like, 'This kid can hit. This is real.' He's a big kid. He's a nice kid. He's hungry, composed. To me, he has the makeup that he could be an impact player in this league.'' Dalbec was out of the starting lineup Monday night with Marwin Gonzalez getting the start at first.