Who needs the Yankees as rivals? The Rays proved that they can put up as good a fight as anyone in the American League East. A career-high 13 strikeouts highlighted the four-hit, seven-inning start by Josh Beckett (2-2), but it was not enough of a speed bump to slow down the Rays, winners of six in a row and tied with the Red Sox and surprising Orioles atop the AL East, although Baltimore and Tampa are percentage points ahead. Rays starter James Shields threw a two-hit, complete-game shutout against a Red Sox lineup that managed just seven hits in its last two games here and wound up hitting .173 in the series. The Rays had never swept a series of three or more games against the Red Sox.
Today marks the club’s first day off since April 7, which also happened to be its first day off after its 16,000-mile Tokyo-West Coast-Toronto trip. This stretch included a pair of two-game series at Cleveland and New York sandwiched between two home-stands and ending with this three-game set at the Tampa Bay Rays. The Red Sox went 12-8 during the stretch – the maximum allowed in a row, per the collective bargaining agreement – but lost the last five.
Sox Notes: Mike Lowell is expected to be activated for tomorrow night’s home-stand opener against Toronto. Lowell wrapped up his three-game rehab assignment with Triple-A Pawtucket yesterday, going 1-for-4 with a sacrifice fly as the team’s designated hitter in a 4-3 loss at Buffalo. He finished the stint 3-for-13 with three RBI. The Red Sox decided to pitch Jon Lester tomorrow, with Daisuke Matsuzaka, who was scratched from his last start because of the flu, going Wednesday.
