The Boston Red Sox just swept the Tampa Bay Rays—the team that entered this series leading the AL East. It’s their fourth consecutive series sweep. Thirteen wins in a row. 50-48 and rising. Holy crap. I can’t keep saying things that show my disbelief at this happening, in the best way possible.
OK, onto the game itself.
Sonny Gray wasn’t sharp—four walks will do that—but he was effective, grinding through jams all afternoon. It’s what the guy who’s stepped up to be the ace in lieu of Garrett Crochet
has just done effortlessly all season. Truest workhorse on this staff. The Rays went 0-for-15 with runners in scoring position, which certainly helped. When that’s what’s happening, the walks start to feel a lot less worrying. Gray’s only blemish was a Victor Mesa Jr. inside-the-park homer in the second, a strange play where Ceddanne Rafaela lost control of the ball in center and then bobbled it, and Mesa Jr. kept running and scored easily. Everything else? Held.
The Sox answered in the second—Caleb Durbin single, steals second and grabs third on the throwing error, coming home on an Andruw Monasterio double (he’s been on fire with XBHs lately!) Then, this incredible squad blew this open in the third in the most chaotic way imaginable. Jahmai Jones walked to lead off. Rafaela flied out. Abreu got hit by a pitch. Willson Contreras worked a walk including a pitch the Rays immediately challenged via AB for the third ball—it was correctly inside, the challenge failed—and suddenly the bases were loaded with one out. Hunter Feduccia let a Caleb Durbin swing and a miss get by him and Jones sprinted home. Durbin then grounded one to Junior Caminero, who threw it into the back of Abreu coming home to tack on another run. Romy Gonzalez grounded out sharply to drive home one more. Three runs, zero hits, two unearned. The Rays gave them three, and the way this Red Sox team is playing, they will capitalize and hang onto every mistake you make.
Then in the fifth, Contreras put it away. A gorgeous two-run shot into the bullpen in right-center, and the whole park was exuberant. The Rays felt done.
Weissert, Morán, and Watson combined for three clean (enough) innings to close it out. Shane McClanahan—in his first season back from the injury that wiped out just about all of his 2025, a season that started, by the way, with him going down against the Red Sox—didn’t have it. He’s looked more beatable than he had in two years before the injury. The Sox took full advantage.
Again. Thirteen wins in a row. Four series sweeps in a row. Against the team leading the division. Six games back of the division lead, as of publish before the second part of the Yankees double header. Four games back of the Pinstripes themselves. The numbers are real. It still doesn’t feel real.
Studs
Sonny Gray (6.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 5 K)
Four walks and it still felt not necessarily controlled, but not too far along the struggle bus. The Rays had runners on all day and came up empty, except for one weird play. Gray has a way of making the pitch he needs when he needs it most, and today that showed. One run in six innings against the first-place team in your division is a win. If this is what “meh” Sonny Gray is, that’s fine by me.
Willson Contreras (1-for-3, HR, 2 RBI, 2 R, 1 BB)
Bowser is locked in and continues to be one of the emotional and physical heartbeats of this roster. The fifth-inning shot was a thing of beauty—right-center, into the bullpen, a majestic shot. That’s the kind of swing that ends a baseball game.
Jahmai Jones (1-for-3, BB, 1 R)
Started again at DH and got on base twice in a game the Sox only had six hits total. For a guy who arrived this week for essentially nothing, he’s fit into this lineup like he belongs. Walked twice, scored, and played it like he’s been here all summer. I don’t know if this is akin to Quinten Berry a la 2013, but so far, so good in a small sample size.
Duds
Jarren Duran (0-for-3, 1 BB)
Has gone quiet at the plate over this series. Not a big deal when the team is winning 13 straight, but worth keeping an eye on as the schedule gets tougher. At least he keeps fielding fly balls. Cause that’s all he’s doing right now (go find an insult for me, bud).
Connor Wong (0-for-3, 2 K)
Two strikeouts, nothing to show for it at the plate. The offense didn’t need much today, but is Wong showing enough to keep his second catcher status beyond this season? Who’s to say.
Play of the Game
The entire bottom of the third. Rays lose both ABS challenges in the third inning—Mesa’s called strikeout confirmed in the top, Contreras’s walk with a pitch upheld in the bottom. Passed ball scores a run. Caminero throws it into the runner scoring. Three runs without a hit. The Sox didn’t earn that inning—the Rays handed it to them—but you have to actually score those runs, and this team has not wasted a single opportunity in 13 games.
