ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Rays feel they have a diverse offense that can produce in different ways, even without hitting home runs.
They showed that Monday, rallying to beat the Red Sox, 4-3, in a Labor Day matinee.
They got a run in the first inning by making soft contact, none of their three singles hit harder than 80 mph. They got another in the fifth, sparked by Jose Siri’s speed.
And they got the two they needed to win the game in the seventh inning with some clutch work by two of their most experienced hitters.
Pinch-hiitter Vidal Brujan started the rally getting hit by a pitch, stealing second and moving to third on Siri’s rightside groundout. That brought up veteran Manuel Margot, and he delivered — as he has so often around the two months he missed with a knee injury — with an RBI double to right-center field.
With Margot on third after Randy Arozarena’s groundout, trade-deadline acquisition David Peralta came through with a hard shot just inside the first-base bag, which scored Margot and gave the Rays a 4-3 lead.
Coming after Sunday’s disappointing sweep-depriving loss to the Yankees, the win was the Rays’ sixth in seven games, 12th in their last 15 and an American League-best 21st in 30 games since Aug. 3.
They stayed within five games of the East-leading Yankees, who beat Minnesota, and at the least maintained their spot as the second of the three AL wild-card teams, having dropped a game behind Seattle on Sunday night.
The Rays called up Luis Patino to step into the rotation opening created by top starter Shane McClanahan’s shoulder injury and hoped to see him at, or close to, his best.
It kind of depended when you looked.
Patino gave up a homer to the second hitter he faced, Alex Verdugo, then a single but nothing else in the first and zipped through a 1-2-3 second inning.
Then he made a mess in what turned out to be a 32-pitch third inning, issuing back-to-back one-out walks in the third to ex-Ray Tommy Pham and Verdugo. With two outs, he allowed a bloop single to Rafael Devers, then a hard double to Trevor Story that made it 3-1.
Patino had a quick fourth inning, then pitched his way into and out of trouble in the fifth, which was his last inning. For the game, just his fifth in the majors this season due to injuries and inconsistent performance, he allowed the three runs on five hits and three walks (one intentional) while striking out four. He threw 91 pitches, 57 strikes.
