[Art Deco]

Game 1: Although there's no longer a division race to speak of, the Red Sox are still fighting for a wild card and the Rays would like to get back at Boston after being swept in Fenway the last time the two teams met. Plus there's the Devers/Toro trade drama to play out. This one looked for the longest time that it would be a continuation of that Fenway series as the Rays played some sloppy baseball and fell behind 5-2 into the 7th inning. But they muscled up and rode the longball to a 6-5 comeback win. Max Fried got the nod and deserved a better fate as a couple of infield singles led to two Boston runs in the 3rd and a pair of Rays errors by Devers and Wander in the fifth helped Boston score two more times in the 5th. Max left with a 6 8 5 3 2 6 line and really pitched better than that. Meanwhile all the Rays had to show against Justin Dunn was a 2-run Brandon Marsh HR in the 2nd, his 15th. But they came back, first with Seth Beer's 14th HR making it 5-3 in the 7th and then they jumped on Red Sox reliever Wander Suero in the 8th. Franco did some Wander-on-Wander damage with his 23rd of the year to lead off the inning and make it 5-4, Austin Meadows singled, and after Devers popped out, Keibert Ruiz blasted his 13th HR of the season to make it 6-5 Rays. Will Smith took it from there with yet another perfect inning for save #22 in as many chances. He's really having a great year as closer with his overall pitching line being 27 15 3 3 7 33. Ty Buttrey had a scoreless 7th in relief of Fried, and Shane McClanahan picked up win #6 with a scoreless 8th. Toro won the head-to-head battle with Devers, though, going 2-5 with an RBI double and SB while Devers was 0-4 with that error. Nick Schnell was also 0-4 as he's come back to Earth after the hot start, now in a mini 0-13 slump. Today was the first game he didn't even get on base at all.

Game 2: There was no late comeback today as the Red Sox held on for a 5-3 win over the Rays. It was 1-1 going into the 7th with Tyler Glasnow right at the 100 pitch mark and I probably shouldn't have had him come out for the inning. He gave up 2 hits to lead things off and with lefty Alex Verdugo due up, I went with Nick Anderson instead of Alvarado which was mistake #2 as Verdugo took a 1-2 Anderson offering and deposited it into the LF seats and that was that. The Rays got a couple back in the bottom of the 8th when Austin Meadows tripled and scored on a Devers groundout, and on a Ronaldo Hernandez RBI single. But TJ McFarland gave up his first Rays run in the top of the 9th on a wild pitch and although Nick Schnell (who came in to replace the ejected Brandon Marsh) led off the 9th with a walk against Boston closer Durbin Feltman, the next 3 batters made outs and the game was over. For the most part, Chris Sale kept the Rays in check once again, going 7.2 9 3 3 1 2 while Glasnow was 6 8 3 3 1 6 and dropped to 12-3. Sale is now 4-10 but two of those wins have been over the Rays.

Game 3: Noah Syndergaard was in fine form once again as the Rays took the series from Boston with a 4-1 win. He improved to 15-4 and has been on quite the roll lately, lowering his ERA to 3.34 with the 7 7 1 1 1 7 outing and looking like a Cy Young contender. Ryan Mountcastle's 24th HR of the year was his only blemish. Vidal Brujan and Austin Meadows needed a rest today, so Brandon Marsh moved into the leadoff spot and led off the bottom of the 1st with HR #16, and then in the 2nd Ronaldo's sac fly and a Nick Schnell RBI double (off a lefty, Cionel Perez, who had 3-hit them in Fenway earlier this year) made it 3-0. Alec Bohm went long for #24 in the 4th to cap off the scoring. Jose Alvarado had a semi-rocky 8th - after striking out the leadoff man he allowed a single and a double to put men on 2nd and 3rd but then struck out the next two to get out of it. Will Smith came on for the save but had to leave after retiring the leadoff man with a mild abdominal strain that will keep him day-to-day for a week, so Ty Buttrey had to get the final 2 outs.

Team record: 76-29.