David Ortiz plays his final game at Tropicana Field on Sunday as the Boston Red Sox try for their 11th straight victory in the series finale against the Tampa Bay Rays.
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Boston maintained a 5½-game lead over Toronto for the division title and ensured no worse than the AL’s second wild card.
“They are definitely the team to beat right now in my eyes”, Rays reliever Danny Farquhar said after giving up a seventh-inning grand slam to Dustin Pedroia, who fouled off several pitches with two outs to dig out of an 0-2 hole and hit a huge home run. He allowed just three hits while striking out 13 batters (career high) while walking just two and hitting a batter.
Kansas City hit for the cycle four batters into the game and when Paulo Orlando singled, it drove starter Matt Boyd from the game without retiring a batter. Eduardo Rodriguez gets the ball, and he’s 3-7 with a 4.84 ERA and 78 strikeouts this season. The lone start in that span in which the ball stayed in the park came against the Red Sox on August 25, when Odorizzi yielded one run in seven innings to earn a win. The Red Sox escaped further damage when Nick Franklin grounded into an inning-ending double play with runners on the corners.
Red Sox: Ortiz will play at Yankee Stadium for the final time during a three-game series against NY that starts Tuesday night. He ends his career with a.375 average against the righthander, with 15 hits, including four home runs. The hit also moved him ahead of Red Sox Hall of Famer Harry Hooper on the all-time list (2,464) and tied him with another Hall of Famer, Lou Gehrig, for the 10th-most extra-base hits (1,190). Ortiz now owns more homers and more RBI’s than any player in their final major league season. That’s a major-league record, one more than the 10 straight Padres who fanned against Tom Seaver of the Mets on April 22, 1970. The 26-year-old notched a quality start in six of his last seven outings but allowed at least one home run in all by one of those turns.
Boston is on its longest September winning streak since an 11-game run in 1949.
HOUSTON – Joe Musgrove worked seven strong innings and Houston belted three solo home runs to offer support in a win over Los Angeles at Minute Maid Park.
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The Red Sox scored the victor in the 10th when Dustin Pedroia scored from first base on a ball lined into the right-centerfield gap by David Ortiz.
