The Red Sox, perhaps basking in the afterglow of David Ortiz’s 500th home run on Saturday, rested a few starters on Sunday afternoon: Devin Marrero got the start in place of Pablo Sandoval at 3rd base, Sandy León played catcher (giving both Ryan Hanigan and Blake Swihart a rest), and probably worst of all, Allen Craig DHed in place of Ortiz.

Also getting an extra day of rest were each of the Boston starting pitchers. Rich Hill, who’d been tearing it up earlier in 2015 with the Long Island Ducks, has been pitching for Pawtucket since early August after signing a minor league deal with the Red Sox. Don Orsillo mentioned that he’s shifted to an over-the-top delivery from a sidearm motion since his last major league stint. Whatever Hill changed, it’s working, because he was absolutely excellent today.

Put it this way: Rays’ starter Drew Smyly pitched very well. In fact, he was borderline dominant:

PITCHERS	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Smyly	6.0	4	0	0	2	11	0	3.14

His 11 strikeouts tied a career high. But Hill was better.

PITCHERS	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Hill	7.0	1	0	0	1	10	0	0.00

I should point out that Hill did hit 2 batters, and that’s not reflected in the box score. But still, this was absolute dominance. Mostly, as you can see below, because the Rays had no idea what to make of Hill’s curveball.

Unfortunately for Hill, the Red Sox offense couldn’t take advantage of the opportunities it had in regulation. There were Boston runners in scoring position in each of the first 3 innings, but Smyly escaped each time. Hill, on the other hand, only faced a threat in the bottom of the 3rd, when J.P. Arencibia hit an infield single to Xander Bogaerts and hit Mikie Mahtook to put Arencibia on second base. But he got Evan Longoria to pop out on a 2-0 count, and the inning ended.

The Red Sox got another chance in the 7th, after Smyly exited the game and was replaced by Steven Geltz. Craig, defying the gods, hit an infield single and Marrero moved Craig to second with a single of his own. If there were ever a time to pinch hit, it was now, with Sandy León (.177/.240/.198) coming to the plate with one out and two good offensive catchers on the bench. Instead, he struck out badly on a splitter in the dirt. Alex Colome replaced Geltz and struck out Jackie Bradley, Jr., who had a tough night at the plate (0-5 with 3 strikeouts).

Jean Machi pitched a clean 8th and faced the first batter of the 9th, Asdrubal Cabrera. Cabrera laid down a bunt that looked absolutely perfect until Devin Marrero made an unbelievable play to throw him out. At this point, Torey Lovullo, who’d had both Robbie Ross, Jr. and Tommy Layne warming up, decided that he’d rather have a righty come in to relieve Machi. So to give Noe Ramirez sufficient time to warm up, he walked out as slowly as possible and had a 90-second chat with his entire infield before home plate umpire Angel Hernandez walked out to the mound. Hernandez was in a good mood, laughing as he signaled to the Red Sox bullpen himself, tapping his right arm.

Both Boston and Tampa botched bunt attempts to move leadoff runners to second base in the 10th inning. In the 11th, Travis Shaw nearly turned enough on an outside pitch to send it out of the park, but it was just short and Steven Souza, Jr. made a great leaping catch. Craig struck out to end the inning with Rusney Castillo standing at second. The Red Sox made consecutive awkward catches to record outs in the bottom half of the inning, the last of which was this catch that Bradley lost in the lights and the first of which was this late attempt at a dive by Mookie Betts after some miscommunication:

Heath Hembree gave up a one-out double in the 12th, but intentionally walked pinch hitter John Jaso and induced a 6-4-3 double play to escape.

Through 12, the Red Sox had 10 hits and the Rays had 2. Something had to give. Either Boston was going to have squandered a good, if unlucky, offensive performance, or they’d keep it up and reap the rewards. Thankfully, it was the latter.

Finally, Pedroia, Bogaerts, and Shaw strung back-to-back-to-back singles together and loaded the bases with 1 out. And Rusney Castillo had the good sense to hit a clean single to left field, scoring both Pedroia, who hesitated in case it could be good, and Bogaerts, who appeared to be running on contact. With men on 1st and 2nd with 1 out, Craig was up and – well, let’s just say the inning ended.

Ross, after a lot of warming up, finally entered the game and got the save, his second of the season. He got a little help from Pedey, too.

Notes:

1. The Red Sox are now 7-3 in their last 10 games, making them the hottest team in the AL.

2. Allen Craig really probably does not belong in the bigs right now. I feel for him, but…I mean, .127/.227/.167 does not contribute.

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.