After being swept by the Toronto Blue Jays, the Boston Red Sox have now bounced back taking the first two games of a three game set at Fenway Park over the Tampa Bay Rays. Following a 9-8 win Friday night, Rich Hill spun 7.0 dominant shutout innings on Saturday evening with 11 strikeouts in a 5-1 Boston win to clinch the series victory.
Boston (62-65) scored four runs in the first inning to back Hill. Tommy Pham led off with a single, and Alex Verdugo followed with a double to set it up. JD Martinez then slapped a two-run single to left field, and five batters later with two outs Bobby Dalbec also added a two-run single. Hill did the rest on the mound. The 42-year old left hander allowed just three hits and only walked one, striking out the side in both the third and seventh innings. He retired 21 of 25 batters he faced, starting 17 of them with first pitch strikes. Kike Hernandez added a solo homerun in the fourth, while Tampa Bay (69-57) got their only run on an RBI single in the eighth by Randy Arozarena. Alex Cora also passed Eddie Kasko for ninth place on the all-time wins list as a manager of the Red Sox (346). Hill also became just the 25th starter in Boston history to allow no runs and strikeout 11 or more in seven or more innings, and the fifth ever in MLB to record that many strikeouts at age 42 or older.
Hill improved his pitching record to 6-5, and John Schreiber picked up his fifth save pitching the final 1.1 innings. Hill threw a total of 95 pitches (71 for strikes). Pham and Verdugo had two hits a piece. Arozarena had two hits in the loss for the Rays, with Jeffrey Springs (6-4) taking the loss on the mound allowing five runs on eight hits in 6.0 innings. Boston goes for a rare three game AL East sweep Sunday afternoon at 1:35, sending Nick Pivetta (9-9, 4.24 ERA) to the bump against Corey Kluber (8-7, 4.20) for Tampa Bay.
