Rays Beat Red Sox 3-2; Move to 1.5 Games Ahead of Sox

A win is a win is a win. I don't care that the Rays were essentially facing a Triple-A ball club last night after Kevin Youkilis left the game with an injury - they still beat the Red Sox and guaranteed a series win. It may not have been the prettiest win, but it was still a win in the record books. The Rays needed to capitalize in this series if they wanted to have a chance of beating out the Red Sox for the wild card, and they have so far. Ugly win, cheap win, whatever - it's still a win.

That said, there's no reason that this game should have been decided by one run.  The Rays were 1 for 6 last night with runners in scoring position, including leaving the bases loaded twice in the sixth inning alone. Here's the set-up: Longoria walks, Aybar singles, Kapler walks. Pena's at bat and is working the count well - it's 3-1 at the moment - when Kevin Cash snap throws the ball to third and picks off Longoria. Pena ends up walking, but then Sean Rodriguez makes the final out of the inning and leaves the bases loaded. The Rays still had a 2-1 lead at that point, but man, it appears as though the Rays aren't entirely over their poor offensive ways.

To be fair to the offense, though, the game still shouldn't have been that close. In the fourth inning, Jeff Niemann got two quick outs and then got J.D. Drew to hit a grounder to third base. It's an easy play, but Longoria manages to throw the ball away, allowing Drew to go to second and score on a single by Daniel Nava. 999 out of 1000 times, Longoria makes that play correctly; tonight just happened to be the time he screwed up.

Other Notes:

• Maddon made some interesting decisions last evening, including intentionally walking David Ortiz three times in a row. Once Youkilis went down with a freak foot injury - he appeared to injure himself kicking at the dirt - Ortiz had Niuman Romero batting behind him for the rest of the game. This was his first game getting major league at bats this season and he was obviously over-matched at times last night, making the intentional walk call easy. However, with a one run lead in the seventh inning, the Sox had a man on first with two outs with Ortiz at the plate. Maddon still walked Ortiz here, putting the tying run on second base and the go-ahead run at first. Good decision? Poor decision? I'm still torn at the moment, but my gut tells me you shouldn't intentionally walk Ortiz there. Pitch around him, sure. But don't put the tying run so close to scoring, Triple-A batter or not.  
• Upton was 0-4 on the night, but hit multiple hard hit flyball outs, including one the announcers had me convinced was a home run. It's still not a great night, but that's better than striking out four times at least.
• Niemann had uncharacteristic poor control yesterday, walking three batters and throwing 47 balls in six innings. One of those walks was intentional, but it was still weird seeing Niemann walk back-to-back batters in the top of the third.
• Soriano looked tired during the ninth inning - I mean, the man had pitched every day for the last four days - but he still managed to get the job done. Oh, and Joacquin Benoit continues to astound, tossing one scoreless, hitless, two strikeout inning. The man can't be touched.
• David Price going for the series sweep? Yes, please.