After sleepwalking through Monday’s contest the Rays bats woke up tagging Nick Pivetta for 7 earned over 5.2 innings. It all started in the top of the 1st after the first two reached for Tampa a controversial ball four call to Wander Franco loaded the bases which were cleared two batters later by Red Sox killer Kevin Kiermaier. After a Kiermaier baserunning error lead to an inning ending double play the Sox responded in the bottom of the inning on a two run shot to center from Xander Bogaerts.

Pivetta seemed to settle in and cruised through the next four innings. In the bottom half of the 2nd Trevor Story knotted the game at three with his second home run in as many days and it felt as if the Red Sox were back on track. Then in the bottom of the 5th an 0-2 single from Refsnyder followed by a JD Martinez double had the Sox looking at second and third with nobody out an opportunity they would squander as the next three batters were set down.

That proved costly as the Rays were able to push three more across to run Pivetta from the game. Jake Diekman allowed an inherited runner to score to widen the gap to a four run lead. Pivetta finished the day giving up seven earned runs his most of the season.

After Boston was set down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the frame Alex Cora ran out his proverbial white flag in Hansel Robles who gave up another to run which extended Tampa’s lead to 8-3. Allow me to rant here for a bit: why is Hansel Robles still on this roster? Better yet why is he being used in any situation that isn’t a mop up role? Now I imagine when the rotation comes together with the likes of Sale, Eovaldi, Whitlock, and Paxton all on their way he’ll be DFA’d ,but that still doesn’t explain his use in any winnable game. While he did have a solid month of April he’s been basically unusable ever since. Giving up 7 ER in only 6 innings in June alone shows where he is at. Okay enough about Robles and back to this very uneven performance from the Red Sox.

As the rain started to come down at Fenway the Red Sox were able to cut the deficit back to 4 on a Bogaerts sac fly and Tyler Danish was solid for 2 innings to keep the score at 8-4 heading into the 9th. After Duran and Refsnyder singles followed by Martinez and Bogaerts strike outs Christian Vasquez had a pitch hit him in the helmet setting up a bases loaded two out situation for Trevor Story. Unfortunately he was unable to capitalize and popped out to shortstop and the Red Sox fell to 9-17 against the AL East.

A tough loss but one that you’d like to think is an anomaly. I don’t see Pivetta getting shelled like that often ,but the real issue is the missed opportunities from the Red Sox offense lately. Just tonight they had 11 hits but also left 11 on base that can’t happen especially when your pitcher doesn’t have his best stuff. Nothing to do but look forward, shake it off, win the series tomorrow.

Top pitching prospect Brayan Bello makes his major league debut tomorrow against Corey Kluber (3-5).

Final: Rays 8 Red Sox 4 W: Ryan Thompson (2-2) L: Nick Pivetta (8-6)

EDIT* Looks like Chaim Bloom heard me last night. Hansel Robles has been DFA’d to make room for Bello on the MLB roster.