Brandon Lowe smashed a walk-off, three-run homer as the Tampa Bay Rays evened their home series with Boston in 11 innings, rallying past the Red Sox 8-6 on Tuesday night in St. Petersburg, Fla.
With Christian Bethancourt placed on second base and Yandy Diaz drawing a leadoff walk, Lowe roped a 2-2 pitch from Kenley Jansen (3-6) around the right field foul pole for his 18th home run. Jansen blew his fourth save in 33 opportunities.
Erasmo Ramirez (3-3) allowed an unearned run in the top of the frame to get the win.
Rene Pinto stroked a two-run homer and Jonathan Aranda tripled in a run and scored twice for the Rays. Lowe and Isaac Paredes drove in consecutive runs after being hit by pitches.
Tampa Bay (84-55) improved to 6-4 in extra innings and is 8-2 against the Red Sox.
The club recorded its eighth walk-off victory.
Enmanuel Valdez went 2-for-3 and clubbed a two-run homer, Ceddanne Rafaela had three hits, and Justin Turner and Rafael Devers had two hits apiece for Boston (72-67).
The Red Sox are 3-2 on their six-game road trip and fell to 4-5 in extra innings.
In the 10th matchup between the American League East foes, defense by center fielders made a major impact early.
After Triston Casas led off the second inning with a walk, Jose Siri ran down a drive by Masataka Yoshida, snaring it on a leaping catch near the wall.
In the Rays' half, Vidal Brujan drew a two-out walk and Boston's Wilyer Abreu overran a towering shot by Aranda in center that allowed Brujan to score and Aranda to notch his triple.
Pinto followed with a homer to left-center — a 419-foot smash for his third home run of the season — for a 3-0 lead.
But the Red Sox got two back in the third on Valdez's fifth homer, a blast to right field on a cutter from starter Zach Eflin, who went five-plus innings and allowed three runs.
The Rays loaded the bases to chase starter Kutter Crawford with two outs in the fourth, and reliever Joe Jacques plunked Lowe and Paredes with pitches to give Tampa Bay a 5-2 lead.
In the sixth, Boston got one back on an RBI single by Turner against Eflin. But with the bases loaded and no outs, Colin Poche fanned Adam Duvall and Yoshida looking, then Kevin Kelly got pinch hitter Refsnyder to fly out to Siri.
Turner and Casas had RBI singles in the seventh to tie it.
—Field Level Media