Tampa Bay Rays Get Outslugged in Home Run Parade Against Boston Red Sox

BOSTON — For the first time in over three weeks, the Tampa Bay Rays have lost back-to-back games.

The Boston Red Sox held off the Rays' bats for the second night in a row on Wednesday, stealing the decisive series finale 4-3. Tampa Bay scored just four runs in the last two games of the divisional showdown at Fenway Park after putting up 10 in game one.

And while the Red Sox didn't get many ducks on the pond, they didn't need to in order to outpace the Rays.

Jarren Duran took Zack Littell deep on his very first pitch of the night. He worked out of a two-man jam to get out of the opening frame, only to give up another solo home run to Marcelo Mayer on his very first pitch of the second inning.

Mayer added another homer in the fourth.

Meanwhile, the Rays' offense was only able to plate one run after loading the bases with no outs in the second.

"That's the game," said manager Kevin Cash. "There are certain games where it comes early, we gotta find a way to get more than one run."

Yandy Díaz tied things up with a two-run homer of his own in the fifth, only for Abraham Toro to put Boston back ahead with a solo shot to straightaway center in the bottom of the frame. Josh Lowe nearly went yard in a 10-pitch at-bat against Walker Buehler, fouling two just outside the right field foul pole, but ultimately grounded out to first to end the seventh.

Buehler got credit for the quality start, allowing six hits, one walk and three earned runs in 7.0 innings of work. Littell fell just shy of that mark, allowing eight hits and four earned runs – all off homers – across 6.0 innings.

Both starters cleared 90 pitches, despite the barrage of home runs.

"Offense kept coming back and back and kinda bailing me out and I just didn't do anything for them," Littell said. "The least I could do was try and get through 6.0 innings, but definitely don't want to say it makes me feel any better."

While Littell kept his season ERA at 3.84, he has now given up 21 home runs in 14 starts, or one every 4.1 innings.

The Rays wouldn't have even needed another home run to pull ahead late, considering they had multiple runners in scoring position in the top of the eighth. José Caballero got caught stealing third, though, and catcher Matt Thaiss struck out with the bases loaded to end the inning.

Wednesday marked the first game of the series in which Caballero didn't steal a base, as he went 4-for-4 between games one and two. The utility man is now 25-for-30 on the season, having converted on 16 consecutive tries prior to Wednesday, so he wasn't going to let one failed attempt throw off his confidence.

"Nothing brings me down, man," Caballero said. "I'm aggressive and I'll never be less than that."

Tampa Bay went down in order in the ninth, dropping to 36-32 in the process. Three games now stand between them and the fourth-place Red Sox, while the Rays trail the Toronto Blue Jays by two games for second place in the AL East.

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