Red Sox lose 7-5 to Rays after wild, controversial ninth inning (2024)

All season the Red Sox have struggled playing from behind. Entering Thursday the club only had six comeback wins, none in which the Red Sox trailed by more than one run.

The Red Sox were able to erase a four-run deficit Thursday night, but they couldn’t rally a second time in the ninth.

With the game tied heading into the top of the ninth, the Tampa Bay Rays tagged Red Sox closer Kenley Jansen for two runs. Though they were able to get runners at the corners with two outs, the Red Sox couldn’t complete the late comeback,losing 7-5 in the series finale.

But not before the game took a strange turn.

After Tampa Bay Rays closer Jason Adam allowed a single to Rafael Devers with two outs in the ninth, a strange sequence unfolded in which Rays pitching coach Kyle Snyder began to approach the mound despite the Rays being out of mound visits. By rule that requires the pitcher be removed from the game, which Red Sox manager Alex Cora immediately noticed and pointed out. That led to an animated discussion with the umpires, eventually prompting a lengthy review that resulted in Adam being removed, forcing Tampa Bay to turn to right-hander Erasmo Ramirez to get the final out.

Cora said afterward he felt the situation was mishandled and that Ramirez shouldn’t have had as much time to warm up as he ultimately got.

“It wasn’t confusing, they messed it up because they had time to warm up Erasmo there in the bullpen. You’ve got to throw him out right away, he comes in, he gets eight pitches and then he goes. That’s the way the rule should go. By the time I went out there and argued, the rule check, he has time to warm up. It was probably going to be the same outcome but to be prepared for a big league game it’s eight pitches and go out to battle. So it’s tough.”

So why wasn’t Adam immediately forced to leave? Cora said the umpires said they’d stopped Snyder before he got to the mound.

“He never got to the mound, but I was like no, that was a visit,” Cora said. “Basically they messed it up, New York corrected but it took like seven minutes.”

When play eventually resumed, Ramirez got Romy Gonzalez to ground out to end the game.

Early on it felt like it was going to be a long night at Fenway. Facing his former team, Cooper Criswell endured his worst outing since joining the Red Sox. The right-hander threw 100 pitches but couldn’t get through the fourth inning, allowing five runs (three earned) on four hits, two walks and a hit by pitch over 3.2 innings.

Tampa Bay scored on a Richie Palacios groundout in the second, a two-run home run by Josh Lowe in the third, and in the fourth the Rays loaded the bases with one out and scored on a Criswell wild pitch. They added one more on a Yandy Diaz groundout, though it could have been worse if Ceddanne Rafaela hadn’t made a sensational diving stop and throw on the play to prevent another run from scoring.

By that point the Red Sox had scored one run on a Rafael Devers solo homer — which tied him with Nomar Garciaparra for 12th in franchise history with 178 home runs — but they trailed 5-1 entering the fifth after stranding runners at third base in both the third and fourth innings.

The offense finally came to life in the fifth, however, loading the bases on a Jarren Duran double, Rob Refsnyder single and Devers walk before Dominic Smith scored Duran with a groundout to first. Then, Garrett Cooper delivered the big hit the Red Sox had been waiting for, ripping a two-run double to cut the deficit to one, and Duran tied the game with a solo home run in the bottom of the sixth.

Boston’s bullpen kept the Rays at bay into the later innings, with Justin Slaten striking out the side with a dominant seventh and Chris Martin following with a scoreless eighth, but Tampa Bay got to Jansen in the ninth. Randy Arozarena drew a walk, Jonathan Aranda singled and Isaac Paredes gave the Rays the lead with a scorched single high off the Green Monster that wasn’t far from being a three-run home run. Richie Palacios tacked on a sacrifice fly and that proved all the offense Tampa Bay needed.

“To me it’s unacceptable,” Jansen said. “I’ve got to be better in that situation.”

Though he flew out to lead off the bottom of the ninth, Duran enjoyed a terrific game, going 3 for 5 with two doubles and a home run to lead the Red Sox offense. Duran said he was proud of the lineup for fighting back and believes despite the loss it was a performance the team can build off of.

“We fought back hard, they punched us, we punched back,” Duran said. “It’s just baseball and they scrapped it out more than us tonight, but I like where we’re at. I like that we’re fighting back right now and I like where we’re taking our at bats at the plate.”

The Red Sox (22-22) will now hit the road to face the St. Louis Cardinals for a weekend series. Brayan Bello (4-1, 3.13) is set to face St. Louis’ Kyle Gibson (2-2, 3.67), with first pitch scheduled for 8:15 p.m. ET.