Rays top Red Sox with historic all-lefty lineup

Snell (4-1) topped his previous longest scoreless start of the season -- also in a win over Boston on Aug. 12 in Fenway Park -- by one out, allowing five hits, walking two and striking out five. Rays manager Kevin Cash stacked the batting order completely with left-handed hitters against Boston opener Andrew Triggs.

Blake Snell spun 5 1/3 shutout innings, Nate Lowe homered twice in a four-RBI night, and the Tampa Bay Rays walloped the Boston Red Sox 11-1 Friday in St. Petersburg, Fla., using a historic lineup to do it. Snell (4-1) topped his previous longest scoreless start of the season -- also in a win over Boston on Aug. 12 in Fenway Park -- by one out, allowing five hits, walking two and striking out five.

Rays manager Kevin Cash stacked the batting order completely with left-handed hitters against Boston opener Andrew Triggs. According to MLB, it marked the first time any team had nine purely left-handed batters (no switch-hitters) -- in the lineup to start a game since at least 1901. The American League East-leading Rays (29-16) broke their three-game losing streak and are now 6-2 against the Red Sox this season.

Nate Lowe finished 3-for-4 with three runs and the four RBIs, Yoshi Tsutsugo was 2-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs, and Brandon Lowe had two hits, a walk and two stolen bases. The Red Sox (16-30) generated 11 hits -- two each by Jackie Bradley Jr. (two doubles), Alex Verdugo, Rafael Devers and Bobby Dalbec.

While Triggs go the start for Boston -- working a scoreless first -- he gave way to lefty reliever Matt Hall to start the second. But the move backfired in the first at-bat when Tsutsugo boomed a hanging curve deep to right off the netting covering the pool for his seventh homer of the season and a 1-0 lead.

Aggressive baserunning on a double steal by Joey Wendle (2-for-4, double) and Brandon Lowe in the third allowed the home side to add to its lead on Kevin Kiermaier's groundout that scored Wendle. Austin Meadows got Hall for two more runs when he rapped a double to center to score Nate Lowe and Michael Perez in the fourth for a 4-0 advantage.

Despite the perceived lefty-lefty advantage Hall (0-3) didn't fare well against the Rays' unique order -- allowing four runs on six hits in 2 1/3 innings pitched. Nate Lowe greeted reliever Domingo Tapia with a solo homer -- his first -- on a liner to right-center to open the sixth.

In a four-run seventh, Tsutsugo had an RBI single before Nate Lowe sliced a three-run shot down the left field line for his second career two-homer game, and Ji-Man Choi's run-scoring double and Kiermaier's RBI groundout rounded out the Rays' scoring in eighth. Dalbec's five-game home run streak came to an end, but he singled in Bradley in the ninth to break up the Rays' bid for their fourth shutout.

--Field Level Media

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