Red Sox beat Tigers on Marathon Monday as bullpen shines after Sonny Gray injury; Ceddanne Rafaela delivers clutch hit

The Red Sox entered their Marathon Monday finale against the Tigers looking to salvage a split after back-to-back losses and shortened outings from Garrett Crochet and Brayan Bello. 

With the early 11:10 a.m. start putting added pressure on the pitching staff, Boston turned to Sonny Gray in need of length, but got the opposite. The right-hander exited after just 2 2/3 innings and 40 pitches due to right hamstring tightness, leaving the bullpen to pick up the slack early.

“I can honestly say it doesn’t feel like it’s a horrible thing,” Gray said after an 8-6 Red Sox win. “It’s just something that’s going to take however long it’s going to take to get right. I don’t know what that is right now.”

Gray said he felt a “grab” on a 3-2 pitch to Gleyber Torres in the third inning.

“It’s something I had felt before,” Gray said. “In the moment, I knew what it was. Knew that I needed to at least throw a warm-up pitch before I would feel comfortable continuing. When something like that happens, you start going, like, ‘Should I keep trying to pitch?’”

Gray will be placed on the injured list, and Boston will recall reliever Tyler Samaniego from Triple-A Worcester, according to MassLive's Chris Cotillo. 

After Gray’s exit, the bullpen came up huge. Alex Cora turned to seven relievers who combined to cover the final 6 1/3 innings, keeping Boston within striking distance until the offense finally broke through.

Danny Coulombe stranded both inherited runners by inducing a groundout from Tigers first baseman Colt Keith. Zack Kelly followed with 1 2/3 scoreless innings, helping stabilize the game. Jovani Moran, coming off a career-best three scoreless innings Saturday, couldn’t replicate that success in the sixth, failing to record an out. After issuing back-to-back walks and allowing a go-ahead RBI single to Kerry Carpenter, Cora turned to Greg Weissert in a pivotal moment.

With Boston trailing 3-2 and runners at the corners with no outs, Weissert delivered, striking out the next three batters to strand both runners and keep the deficit at one.

“That was impressive,” Cora said. “Amazing. We needed that.”

Weissert struck out Matt Vierling swinging on a 93.4 mph four-seam fastball, then got Hao-Yu Lee to chase a sweeper. He capped the sequence by freezing Jake Rogers with a 94.2 mph sinker, completing a dominant escape.

“Those situations, you’ve gotta kind of be down their throats and make them make decisions,” Weissert said. “Can’t get cute there. Just kind of gotta fill it up and get them to take some bad swings.”

It was arguably Weissert’s best outing of the season. He threw nine strikes on 10 pitches, mixing five four-seam fastballs, four sinkers, and one sweeper, according to Baseball Savant.

“Early in the season, I was getting a little cute, trying to throw a backdoor cutter, backdoor sweeper,” he said. “Trying to do a little too much 0-0 or 0-1 or whatever it was.”

Entering Monday, Weissert had allowed five runs on seven hits, including three home runs, with three walks over 8 1/3 innings across nine outings. Cora considered sending him back out for the seventh, but pitching coach Andrew Bailey persuaded him to go in a different direction.

“He was like, ‘That was a lot … he emptied the tank,’” Cora said of the conversation with his pitching coach. “You’ve got to trust everybody. … But in games like that, everybody has to be part of it and contribute, and today was kind of like, perfect.”

Garrett Whitlock followed with a perfect seventh inning, and rookie Ryan Watson carried the load into the ninth, working 1 1/3 innings before allowing an RBI single to Torres, Detroit’s first run since the sixth, prompting Cora to turn to his closer. Aroldis Chapman closed out the Tigers in the ninth, recording the 1,339th strikeout of his career. He now sits one shy of tying Goose Gossage for the second-most strikeouts by a reliever in MLB history and is 25 away from breaking the all-time record held by Hoyt Wilhelm.

The Red Sox offense finally broke through on Monday, scoring