SOM Diary: Redsox salvage series at Rays after dropping season opener

Game 1: BOS 3, TB 5 - too many walks...

Boston pitchers give up total of six walks (two of them later turn into runs), 13 hits and five runs. Jon Lester takes the loss with 5 innings pitched, 3 walks, 9 hits, 4 earned runs. David Price has a strong season opener with 7+ innings, giving up 1 run on 8 hits for the win.

Joel Peralta with a 1-2-3 inning for a hold and Rodney with the save bring it home, although Mike Carp comes in as a pinch hitter against the Rays closer and manages to score a double and a run off him.

Ben Zobrist has a field day, going 4 for 5 with a 3 RBI double mixed in. So do Evan Longoria (3 for 4 and a walk), Wil Myers (1 for 3, 2 walks, run) and Sean Rodriguez (starting in left field against the leftie Lester, 3 for 4).

Game 2 BOS 9, TB 7

First innings see great defense, including several heroic feats by Zobrist and an over-the-shoulder catch on the warning track from Ellsbury.

Then the Rays pitching crumbles, as a procession of pitchers fail to do more than get out of a single inning - somehow it's all walks, hits and wild pitches as the Rays pitchers come to the mound after watching their own team bat.

The same disease affects the Redsox bullpen - Miller walks three in his second inning of work, Tazawa closes out the eigth on 2 pitches and then gives up a hit, a steal and a balk to put Zobrist on third.

Nevertheless, the Redsox pull through with Buchholz taking the win and Uehara the first save of the season.

Game 3: BOS 6, TB 5 after 10 innings - Ballpark robbery

Top of the fifth, the Redsox trail the Rays 2-4 and Ellsbury leads off. Ellsbury hits it deep to right field, just over the wall, or does he? No, what an amazing catch by the rightfielder! Joyce jumped up and reached over the wall and to his own surprize came up with the ball, robbing Ellsbury of a homerun by inches (in Stratomatic terms, Ellsbury rolled a 6 on the ballpark chart, just enough to barely scorw a homerun in Tropicana Field, and Joyce rolled the smallest possible number for a 3-rated outfielder to turn the HR into a flyout - can't have it any closer...).

However, next inning Bradley gets sweet revenge for the Redsox, hitting the ball cleanly out of the ballpark towards left field, scoring (of all possible payers) David Ortiz who had doubled to start the sixth.

The late game is a nailbiter, the tie after nine innings is broken up by classic Ortiz with a towering homer, but Miller gives up a double to the Rays' leadoff hitter Desmond Jennings who advances to third on a bobble by Carp in right field. However, Uehara comes in for the second save in two days and summarily dispatches Ben Zobrist (2 for 4 until then) with a three pitch strikeout. Reliever Andrew Bailey takes the win, and James Wright takes the loss from he hands of Big Papi.