Justin Turner steps up as Red Sox rally for 8-5 win over Rays

Justin Turner is widely renowned as one of baseball’s best teammates and leaders, and on multiple occasions Saturday he demonstrated why.

Shortly after arriving at the park Turner attended Rob Refsnyder’s press conference announcing his new contract extension. During his remarks Refsnyder revealed Turner was the only player he confided in while the negotiations were ongoing, and that ever since his arrival from Los Angeles Turner has completely changed the Red Sox clubhouse for the better.

Then, a couple of hours later, Turner led the charge as the Red Sox came from behind to beat the first-place Tampa Bay Rays 8-5, delivering the decisive blow with a bases-loaded, three-run double.

“He’s a good player, he’s a good influence on the kids,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “We fell behind today and the way we did it wasn’t a good taste, but he kept going in the dugout, kept pushing them and that helped us out to win.”

Turner’s big hit with two outs in the bottom of the sixth turned a 4-2 deficit into a 5-4 lead and sparked what wound up being a six-run rally. Masataka Yoshida followed him with an RBI double of his own and Jarren Duran completed the outburst with an RBI single.

From that point the bullpen was able to take care of business, and Kenley Jansen slammed the door with three strikeouts in the ninth to record his 12th save of the year.

“Every time I came in the dugout it’s like ‘let’s go, let’s get another guy on, let’s build an inning,’ and we’ve been really good at that all year,” Turner said. “We did a good job today of pushing and pushing and pushing and then eventually you see the six.”

The Red Sox trailed as much as 4-0, with the Rays tagging Garrett Whitlock for three runs in the second thanks largely to the first of Kiké Hernández’s two errors. With two on and two out Hernández dove to stop a ground ball off the bat of Christian Bethancourt but then flung the ball past second baseman Pablo Reyes, allowing a run to score, and Yandy Diaz then took advantage by ripping a two-run double.

Tampa Bay added its fourth run on a Harold Ramirez sacrifice fly in the fifth, and Whitlock finished his outing with a somewhat misleading four runs allowed over 4.2 innings. Whitlock allowed six hits and two walks, struck out five and threw 97 pitches, 69 for strikes.

Largely stagnant through the first half of the game, Boston’s bats came to life from the fifth inning onwards. The Red Sox got on the board when Reese McGuire led off the fifth with a double and came around to score on an Alex Verdugo single.

After that the club loaded the bases and couldn’t cash in, but when they came up again in the sixth the offense quickly picked up where it left off. Hernández singled, McGuire walked, Pablo Reyes hit an RBI single and Rafael Devers walked to reload the bases, setting the stage for Turner’s big blow.

“That’s the beauty of putting the ball in play, there’ve been so many games against them that it’s 15 strikeouts, six fly balls and you don’t put pressure on the defense,” Cora said. “We put the ball in play, took our walks, ran the bases well, it was a total team effort.”

Shortstop woes continue

Kiké Hernández was an excellent defensive center fielder and has enjoyed a solid track record at second base, but his run as Boston’s starting shortstop has not gone well.

The veteran infielder made two more throwing errors early in Saturday’s early game against the Tampa Bay Rays, bringing him to an MLB-worst 13 on the year. He’s been particularly erratic recently, having now made four errors since Tuesday alone.

While ordinarily giving extra outs to a team like the Tampa Bay Rays would be a recipe for disaster, the Red Sox offense made sure the early miscues wouldn’t be the difference this time.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/FkieJry