The Red Sox lost the opener to the Tampa Bay Rays last night and fell farther into last place in the AL East. Boston’s best starter, Wade Miley (4.41 ERA), faced off against the best that Tampa has to offer in Chris Archer (2.95). Miley did a better job, pitching deeper into the game than his counterpart, despite a couple dominant innings by Archer. But the Sox bullpen, for the second time in the last three games, couldn’t keep Boston in the game.

After Betts and Holt went down in the 1st inning, Bogaerts singled to right field and David Ortiz doubled him around from first on a line drive over Kevin Kiermaier’s head in center field to put Boston up 1-0. But the Rays responded in kind by knocking Miley around to start the bottom half of the inning. The lefty surrendered a leadoff double into the right-center gap, an RBI single, and an RBI double down the left field line to Brandon Guyer, Mikie Mahtook, and Evan Longoria, respectively. Miley settled down to get a couple outs, but also gave up an RBI single to Steven Souza, Jr. to put the Sox in a 3-1 hole.

Archer settled down after his slightly shaky beginning, striking out six consecutive batters in the 2nd and 3rd innings (he struck out Sandoval to end the 1st inning too, so he actually struck out seven straight). Miley, meanwhile, had to pitch around a single and a hit batsman in the 2nd, but escaped without harm. He also made this catch with some quick reflexes on a line drive from Mahtook to get the second out of the 5th inning. But it wasn’t quite as good as the play he made against the Mets a couple weeks ago:

That happened during the game I was supposed to recap but instead ignored so I could talk about how much our moving day sucked. It’s all coming full circle, folks. Also, Jackie Bradley continued to be such the man by catching this ball in foul ground to end the inning.

Anyway, when the sixth inning came around, Archer had been cruising, but he ran into trouble quickly by giving up consecutive singles to Bogaerts and Ortiz (Bogaerts’ being of the infield variety). He got the quick hook (having thrown 108 pitches through 5+) in favor of someone named Enny Romero, who promptly surrendered an RBI double to Travis Shaw to make it 3-2. Ortiz probably could have scored too, but he came around anyway when the next batter, Pablo Sandoval, managed an infield single of his own with some help from an errant throw by Asdrubal Cabrera to tie the game at 3. Brandon Gomes relieved Romero, and he got outs, but unfortunately for him, the first two he got were both long fly balls that allowed Shaw to move from second to third and from third to home to give the Red Sox a 4-3 lead.

Despite getting runners to second base in both the 7th and 8th innings, Boston couldn’t plate an insurance run. And once Miley had reached his pitch limit after 7 strong innings, Junichi Tazawa came in and immediately looked…well, he looked like he’s looked recently. To put it succintly: double, single (to tie the game), home run (to completely blow it). Cabrera showed bunt a pitch before hitting it out of the park. Tazawa also threw two wild pitches and allowed Souza (who got on with an infield single after Cabrera’s home run) to steal third base during his slow delivery from the stretch before finally getting an out. Tommy Layne came in to get Kiermaier to line out to Sandoval, but Noe Ramirez, who always looks like he’s throwing 1,000 mph, gave up an absolute BOMB to J.P. Arencibia, who’s basically the Rays’ version of Doug Mirabelli. 8-4, Tampa.

The Red Sox singled a couple times in the 9th, but a four-run deficit is a pretty tall order to overcome. 8-4, final.

One more thing: it was the 14th anniversary of 9/11 yesterday. Barstool posts this video every year, and it’s a must watch. The more people who see it, the better.

Notes:

1. Junichi Tazawa’s ERA is over 4.00 for the first time since September 24, 2011.