Houston Chronicle

Martinez breaks tie to even series 1-1

- By Fred Goodall

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — J.D. Martinez hit a tiebreakin­g three-run homer in his return to the lineup and the Boston Red Sox backed Tanner Houck’s clutch relief effort with a franchise postseason record five home runs, beating the Tampa Bay Rays 14-6 Friday night to even their American League Division Series at a game each.

Kike Hernandez had five of Boston’s 20 hits, including a homer and three doubles, becoming Boston’s first player with four extrabase hits in a postseason game.

Xander Bogaerts, Alex Verdugo and Rafael Devers also connected for the Red Sox, who rallied for a blowout win after ace Chris Sale allowed a first-inning grand slam to Jordan Luplow and was pulled following just three outs.

“Obviously, we had to make adjustment­s, and Tanner came in and did an outstandin­g job,” Boston manager Alex Cora said. “But offensivel­y, it was like, ‘Hey, don’t panic.’ We put up two (runs) in the first, and we still got eight innings. They did an amazing job the whole night.”

Hernandez’s leadoff homer in the fifth off Collin McHugh tied it before Martinez

went deep against Matt Wisler (0-1) four batters later.

“He is definitely a huge piece of that lineup, and I think he showed why today,” Rays catcher Mike Zunino said of Martinez. “He came in, I know coming off an injury, and battling with that isn’t easy. But he had great at-bats all day. You tip your cap.”

Houck (1-0) kept Boston in the game after Sale was rocked for five runs in the

first inning. The rookie righthande­r came out of the bullpen to start the second inning and allowed one run and two hits over five frames, retiring his first 11 batters before yielding a two-out single to Wander Franco in the fifth.

Ji-Man Choi entered as a defensive replacemen­t for Luplow and had the only other hit off Houck, a twoout solo homer in the sixth. Houck struck out five.

Martinez had four hits after missing Tuesday night’s wild card victory over the New York Yankees and Game 1 of the ALDS with a sprained left ankle. He was injured stumbling over second base while heading to the outfield during last weekend’s regular season finale at Washington.

“It felt all right hitting,” Martinez said. “Didn’t feel good running, but felt all right hitting.”

Bogaerts, Verdugo and Hernandez had solo shots to steady the Red Sox, who lost the opener 5-0 Thursday night. Martinez then delivered the lead.

Devers’ two-run homer off Michael Wacha hiked Boston’s advantage to 11-6 in the eighth. Christian Vazquez had an RBI infield single in the ninth, which Hernandez followed with a two-run single. Bogaerts, Verdugo and Vazquez had three hits each.

“We knew coming in they have a very talented offense, and they just put together a lot of quality atbats … and just kind of put it on us,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said.

Rays rookie left Shane Baz became the second pitcher in big league history to start a playoff game with three or fewer career regular season appearance­s. Matt Moore was the other, doing it with the Rays in Game 1 of the 2011 ALDS at

Texas.

In using Baz and Game 1 winner Shane McClanahan to begin the series, AL Eastwinnin­g Tampa Bay joined Oakland as the only teams to start rookie pitchers in the first two games of a playoff series.

Boston, meanwhile, has only gotten 21⁄3 innings combined out of its starting pitchers through two games. Sale, who returned from Tommy John surgery in August to make nine starts down the stretch, was pulled after giving up five runs and four hits in the first inning. That followed an abbreviate­d outing by Eduardo Rodriguez on Thursday.

 ?? Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images ?? J.D. Martinez hit a tiebreakin­g homer in the fifth inning as the Red Sox raced past the Rays in Game 2.
Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images J.D. Martinez hit a tiebreakin­g homer in the fifth inning as the Red Sox raced past the Rays in Game 2.

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