This game had a little bit of everything, both good and bad. The second inning was the story early on as the Rays showed to a national audience how they had won 12 of their last 13, before then reminding those same viewers how they got off to a 2-5 start this season with defensive issues and pitching command problems. A month ago, this would have been one of those game that went from bad to worse (see series vs Cubs), but this red hot team showed its character by putting the second inning behind them and sticking with the flat swings and soft contact to come back in the mid stanza before bringing out the late inning thunder against the Boston bullpen to put the bow on a 8 to 4 victory over the Red Sox.
Griffin Jax continued his evolution into a starter facing 17 batters and throwing 59 pitches, 38 for strikes. One could argue the results would have been better with even normal defensive execution by the infield, but instead decided to revisit some of the defensive lapses which plagued the club in the early part of the season. Jax threw six different pitch types on the evening, using the full arsenal to both righties and lefties. He got off to an efficient 10-pitch first inning, but the second inning saw him and the club give it all back with some poor pitch and defensive execution. The inning led off with one-hopper rocket down the line to a diving Junior Caminero, who popped up and threw a seed across the infield that pulled Jonathan Aranda slightly off the bag, which was not caught live but replay quickly overturned:
Story quickly, and easily, swiped second base to erase a potential double play and that was followed up by a five-pitch walk to Masataka Yoshida which involved four pitches well out of the strike zone. Cedanne Rafaela then drove in Story with another hard hit ball to Caminero that rebounded off him and Taylor Walls allowing Story to score from second on a ball which barely reached the outfield grass:
Jax came back to retire Rafaela on a forceout on a grounder to Ben Williamson setting up a potential double play with Connor Wong at the plate. Jax did his part in that equation, but Walls did not, and it was u-g-l-y without an alibi. Needless to say, this play will likely not come up on the next Waechter Wednesday interview. I would embed the video, but the play was not recorded. It was a textbook groundball for a 6-4-3 which was first booted and then scooped over Williamson’s head into shallow right field allowing Yoshida to score and Mayer to advance to third. Mayer was then driven on on a single through the infield with Aranda close to the bag holding on Wong. The double play that should have come earlier in the inning finally did happen as Jax induced the required grounder from Jarren Duran to bring the sloppy inning to a merciful end.
That long inning allowed Jake Bennett to reset himself after a rough first two innings which required him to throw nearly 50 pitches to get the first six out of the game. The Rays plated three runs in the second inning after Jonny DeLuca converted a one-out walk into a steal of second base and scored on a Ben Williamson single through the right side. Nick Fortes singled to left which was followed by a Cedric Mullins bunt single and a steal of second base. The final run scored that frame was on a ball Yandy Diaz backspun to the warning track near the Devils Triangle part of the yard. Bennett pitched the rest of the game from a rocking chair retiring seven of the next eight Rays around a Yandy Diaz single. Bennett then was bodied by a batted ball by Caminero for an infield single before striking out Aranda on an ABS overturn to end Bennett’s night on the mound.
This was the first of four lefties the Rays will face in this series, so it was nice to see them plate three runs off Bennett even if they all came off singles, walks, and steals. Keep in mind, most of this was done without Chandler Simpson as he was not in the starting lineup tonight but made his presence felt later with a two-run single, a triple, and a strong throw from left field to home as part of a 7-2-4 put out of Willson Contreras trying to advance to second as the trail runner on a play home. Mike Petriello made a point on the broadcast that Simpson has gone from a 0 measure on his first pitch reads in the outfield to a lead-leading 5.7 so far in 2026. Simpson did not make any notable defesnisve impact in this game, but his two-run bases-loaded single in the 6th inning gave the lead back to the Rays and a later triple to drive in a run in the 8th. His half-day off was been earned as has the love the national broadcast gave him in the bottom of the sixth inning for his improvements.
The streak of 13 consecutive games of allowing three runs or fewer came to an end because Cedric Mullins failed to take charge on a can of corn between him and DeLuca which allowed Jarren Duran to turn a routine out into a double. He came around to score on a sac fly, but Caminero put some more distance between the two clubs with this absolute laser into the center field bleachers that might have mortally wounded someone:
That homer brought home Yandy Diaz, who made some history with his leadoff double becoming the 20th Cuban-born player to reach 1,000 career hits and kudos to the broadcast for calling that out:
