Rays 8, Red Sox 5: Kevin Kiermaier returns to a winning team

After a flurry of moves made by the Rays front office during today’s trade deadline, the team looked to seal a series win with a victory in tonight’s contest in Boston.

In familiar fashion, Travis d’Arnaud got the Rays on the board in the top of the 1st against Red Sox starter Rick Porcello.

Coming into tonight, Porcello carried a 4-0 record in the month of July, albeit with an ERA of 7.54. The latter of those two trends continued.

Kevin Kiermaier, fresh off the injured list, added on with a home run in the 2nd.

Austin Meadows added three more runs with a dinger of his own.

Andrew Kittredge pitched two scoreless innings as the game’s opener, and got one more out in the 3rd before giving way to Ryan Yarbrough to eat the middle innings. The Sox scored in the 3rd and again in the 4th, and the Rays added more in the 6th, when another homer, this time by Willy Adames, chased Porcello out of the game.

But it didn’t stop there, as Kiermaier and Matt Duffy continued their hot hitting, combining to add two more in the 7th. Armed with a 6 run lead, it looked like Yarbrough could finish the game, but after allowing two runs in the 7th including a home run to Michael Chavis, manager Kevin Cash made the call to bring Diego Castillo.

A bloop single by JD Martinez drove in the 5th Sox run, and it was the only batter Castillo faced. Instead, Colin Poche finished the inning with an emotional strikeout of Andrew Benintendi.

So the Rays got out of the inning, but that didn’t mean we got to exhale. Poche stayed in the game to pitch the 8th, and after a leadoff single by Sam Travis, he went on to strike out the side like the Poche we got to know earlier this year.

With Emilio Pagan getting work in last night’s game, Cash turned to Chaz Roe to pitch the 9th. He too allowed a leadoff single as well as a walk to make things interesting. Oliver Drake was warm, but Roe was able to finish the job.