The Boston Red Sox will try to stretch their winning streak to seven games Thursday night when they open a four-game series against the visiting Tampa Bay Rays.
Boston completed a three-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies with a 10-2 victory Wednesday. Masataka Yoshida collected three hits in the win after being activated from the 60-day injury list earlier Wednesday.
“Glad to have Masa back,” Boston manager Alex Cora said of Yoshida, who had been out with a shoulder injury. “That’s a big bat for us. You saw the difference today, how long the lineup was. We have to figure it out, who’s going to play and all that stuff, but I think it’s the deepest lineup we’ve had in a while here.”
Boston collected 15 hits in the victory, including four home runs. The Red Sox have had at least 11 hits in each of their last seven games. Wednesday’s home runs came from Carlos Narvaez, Wilyer Abreu, Romy Gonzalez and Jarren Duran.
Boston scored 29 runs in the three-game sweep of the Rockies. The Red Sox are 9-2 since a six-game losing streak that included three losses against the Los Angeles Angels.
“We’ve been playing well,” Cora said. “The tough one was Anaheim (the Angels). Besides that, I think we’ve played competitive baseball. We’re in a good spot.”
Right-hander Walker Buehler (6-6, 6.25 ERA) is Boston’s probable starting pitcher for Thursday’s series opener. He is 2-0 with a 3.75 ERA in two career starts against Tampa Bay.
Tampa Bay is coming off Wednesday’s 7-3 triumph over Detroit. It was only the Rays’ fourth win in their past 12 games and came after back-to-back losses against the Tigers.
“A sweep going into a really tough series in Boston would not have been fun,” said starting pitcher Zack Littell, who gave up three runs over 5 2/3 innings Wednesday before four relievers held Detroit scoreless the rest of the way. “The bullpen … it hasn’t gone our way here lately, so for them to come in there, do it against one of the best lineups in the league and make pitches when we needed to make them and get us a win going into Boston is huge.”
The Rays trailed the Tigers by a run after five innings but strung together two run-scoring doubles and two RBI singles during a four-run sixth inning.
“Nice to string a few hits like that together, especially with two outs, (and) get a few runs across,” Tampa Bay’s Taylor Walls said. “Feel like we’ve been kind of lacking that here lately when we needed it, so that was big.”
“We’ve done some good things early in the ballgame, but they’ve answered back every single time,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash added. “Today we had an answer. Just a bunch of good at-bats.”
Junior Caminero hit his 22nd home run of the season in Wednesday’s win shortly after he learned he will be the American League’s starting third baseman in the All-Star Game, as Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez opted out of the game because of an ailing ankle.
Right-hander Taj Bradley (5-6, 4.79) is scheduled to start for Tampa Bay on Thursday. Bradley has a 4-1 record and a 3.86 ERA in five career starts against the Red Sox.