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After last night's 500 HR celebration for
David Ortiz, everything started to look dismal for
The Carmine Hose. Their young left-handed starter
Eduardo Rodriguez was rocked for three first-inning runs. And, despite drawing five walks from the Tampa starter over three innings—they hadn't scored or even gotten a single hit. Then the tide began to turn. Boston got a single tally in the fourth and rallied for three more in the seventh to take a 4-3 lead. Then, that nasty bullpen thing set in again. Three runs later and Boston was down again, 6-4 heading into the bottom of the eighth. Then, the magic happened. With two outs,
Xander Bogaerts golfed his first career grand slam into the Monster Seats to give Boston an improbable 8-6 lead. A shaky ninth meant
the final score would be 8-7—a result that vaulted the Red Sox out of the AL East basement. Rodriguez ended up going six full innings and gave up just those three first-inning runs. He walked two and struck out four. Other offensive performers for Boston were:
Dustin Pedroia (3-4),
Mookie Betts (2-3), and
Brock Holt (2-4, RBI). Also,
Big Papi notched his 99th RBI of the season. All in all, an impressive (and hopeful) win.
