Rays lose no-hitter bid in 10th, then win game

ST. PETERSBURG — The Rays lost a bid for a no-hitter in the 10th inning Saturday but won the game over the Red Sox 3-2 on a two-run walkoff homer by Kevin Kiermaier with two outs in the bottom of the inning.

Six Tampa Bay pitchers combined to no-hit Boston for nine innings but lost their bid for history in the 10th.

Bobby Dalbec led off the inning by tripling off Matt Wisler, the seventh Rays pitcher, to score Jackie Bradley Jr., who started the inning as the runner on second. Rightfielder Brett Phillips came up just short on a running and sliding try to make the catch. Christian Vazquez then followed with a sacrifice fly.

But the Rays, held to two hits through the first nine innings, rallied. Randy Arozarena, who started the inning on second base, was balked to third with two outs by Hansel Robles, then scored when second baseman Trevor Story made an errant throw to first after fielding Taylor

Walls’ grounder.

Walls stole second, and then Kiermaier, who turned 32 on Friday, delivered the winning blow.

The Rays had a bullpen day planned, and it worked out well before a boisterous Tropicana Field crowd of 19,137, with J.P. Feyereisen, Javy Guerra, Jeffrey Springs, Jason Adam, Ryan Thompson and Andrew Kittredge teaming for the first 27 outs.

The Sox actually had a hit for a few moments in the fourth inning when Alex Verdugo was called safe at first after supposedly beating a Wander Franco throw, but the call was challenged by the Rays and overturned. Franco was lined up on the shortstop side of second and went quickly to his left to make the play and bounced the throw.

Franco also took away the Sox’s closest bid for a hit earlier. In the third, he knocked down a hot shot by Vazquez with his glove, then spun around the ball, picked it up and fired to first for the out.