ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Rays are hoping to play deep into October, battle their way back to the World Series and complete the Champa Bay triple crown with their first championship.
They certainly are heading into September in promising position.
Tuesday’s 8-5 win over a COVID-depleted and sloppy Red Sox squad was the Rays’ ninth straight and 13th in their last 14 games, improving their American League-best record to 84-48.
Ryan Yarbrough worked six solid innings for his eighth win, while Randy Arozarena hit his 18th homer and four other Rays drove in runs, including Yandy Diaz with two RBIs.
While the Rays are attracting a lot of attention for their success, they aren’t drawing many fans, as the announced crowd of 6,868 was the second smallest in 24 seasons of play to see a Rays-Red Sox game at Tropicana Field, a slight uptick from Monday’s record-low 6,753.
Among other feats and figures, the Rays:
— Moved to a franchise-record 36 games over .500.
— Maintained, at the least, a franchise record-tying seven-game East division lead over the Yankees, who played later Tuesday in Anaheim, Calif., with 30 to play.
— Put themselves on pace for 103 wins, six more than the franchise-record 97 in 2008. (Put another way, the Rays could finish 14-16 and still break the record.)
— Completed August with a 21-6 record, their second-most wins for any calendar month, and sixth in their 24 seasons with 20 wins.
— Logged their major league-leading 41st come-from-behind win.
— Improved to 44-18 (.710) against AL East teams, winning 18 of their last 19.
— Lead the majors in runs scored and bullpen ERA and are second overall in ERA.
The Red Sox took a 1-0 lead in the first when Yarbrough allowed a pair of two-out hits.
The Rays tied it in the second when Arozarena homered off recent Red Sox signee Brad Peacock (making his first big-league start since 2019) and broke the game open with six runs in the third.
Not to suggest the Rays didn’t earn the runs, but the Sox certainly were complicit. The Rays sent 10 batters to the plate but rapped only three hits as they benefitted from two walks, two hit batters, an error, a wild pitch and at least one misplay.
The Sox have six players on the COVID-19-related injured list, including shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who was removed from the game in the third inning after the team got word of a positive test result.
