Benintendi leads Red Sox over Rays 4-3 on Patriots’ Day
BOSTON — Andrew Benintendi hit a goahead, two-run single as Boston scored three unearned runs following a dropped throw by second baseman Brad Miller, and the Red Sox beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 on Monday in the annual Patriots’ Day game.
Benintendi had three singles in the 11:05 a.m. start, which coincides with the Boston Marathon, and the Red Sox won their third straight after losing the opener of the four-game series.
Knuckleballer Steven Wright (1-1) allowed three runs — one earned — and nine hits in six innings. He gave up four homers over 1 1/3 innings in his previous start.
Rookie Ben Taylor gave up a run-scoring single to Souza with two outs in the seventh, then retired Logan Morrison on a bases-loaded flyout. Craig Kimbrel struck out the side in the ninth for a save on the third straight day, his sixth this season.
Boston trailed 2-1 in the second when Miller dropped an easy toss from shortstop Tim Beckham for what would have been an inning-ending forceout on Marco Hernandez’s grounder. Benintendi’s single to center put the Red Sox ahead, and Mookie Betts singled for a 4-2 lead.
Blake Snell (0-2) gave up four runs — one earned — and seven hits in five innings. The Rays completed a 1-6 trip that followed a franchise-best 5-2 start.
Some of the Rays were playful in their clubhouse early in the morning, with Morrison joking to teammates about the starting time: “11 o’clock. Let’s play baseball.”
Brad Miller and Souza hit consecutive run-scoring grounders in the first. Both runs were unearned because Hernandez, Boston’s third baseman, dropped a foul popup by Kevin Kiermaier, who then singled.
Hanley Ramirez’s RBI single in the bottom half cut the lead in half.
Cardinals 2, Pirates 1
ST. LOUIS — Lance Lynn pitched seven shutout innings, Kolten Wong homered and the St. Louis Cardinals stopped a three-game losing streak, beating the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-1 Monday night.
The Cardinals, who had lost six of seven, are 4-9 and still have the worst record in the NL. Pittsburgh had won three in a row before losing in a game that took only 2 hours, 14 minutes.
Lynn (1-1) allowed three hits and struck out five while walking one. He also hit two batters.
Seung-Hwan Oh worked around an RBI double by pinch hitter Gregory Polanco in the ninth to record the Cardinals’ first save of the season. The last time it took St. Louis 13 games into a season to get a save was 1980, when Mark Littell
closed out the Phillies at Veterans Stadium.
Ivan Nova (1-2) gave up five hits and no walks in eight innings while striking out three. In 14 overall starts for the Pirates, Nova has four complete games and a grand total of three walks.
Wong led off the third with a home run that landed in the right field bullpen.
St. Louis added a run in the seventh when Randal Grichuk singled, stole second, took third on a throwing error by catcher Francisco Cervelli and scored on a single by Jose Martinez.
Trevor Rosenthal pitched a spotless eighth for the Cardinals. Polanco doubled with two outs in the ninth before Oh retired pinch hitter John Jaso on a grounder.