Thirteen innings on the road. Twelve at home. Last year, this year — it does not matter how long it takes for the Boston Red Sox.
They just keep winning in extra innings.
Hanley Ramirez on Thursday blooped a bases-loaded fly ball over the drawn-in outfield in right to break a 12th-inning tie as the Red Sox, who rallied from a two-run deficit in the ninth inning, beat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2 for their sixth straight victory.
Photo: AFP
It was the ninth straight Red Sox win in an extra-inning game, dating back to last year, when they were 15-3 in extras.
They beat the Miami Marlins in 13 innings on Tuesday before returning home for the Fenway Park opener.
“It seems like it’s not a good game unless we play extra innings,” said Mookie Betts, whose single was the first of four hits in the ninth after Boston had just three in the first eight innings.
Tampa Bay beat Boston in the season opener last week.
The Rays have not won — and the Red Sox have not lost — since.
The teams have met five times already this season, with all four Boston victories by one run.
“We’ve played fairly even by run-scoring, I guess, but unfortunately they’ve got us four times and we only got them once,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said.
Bobby Poyner (1-0) pitched two innings, striking out three for his first major league win.
Andrew Kittredge (0-2) took the loss, throwing a pair of scoreless innings before running into trouble in the 12th.
Jackie Bradley Jr led off with a double, then took third on a sacrifice bunt.
Kittredge intentionally walked Betts and then, after he took second, walked Andrew Benintendi to load the bases.
With one out and the outfield in, Ramirez looped the ball to right off Ryan Yarbrough that one-hopped the wall.
With the sun beginning to set over the third-base stands and temperatures dropping the Red Sox were glad to be finished.
They came running out of the dugout to celebrate and Ramirez fled into the outfield with his teammates in pursuit.
One tried to douse him with a cup of water, but missed.
“It was cold,” Ramirez said. “I think it was the coldest I’ve ever played in my life.”
David Price pitched seven shutout innings for the second straight outing, but Carson Smith gave up Matt Duffy’s two-run homer in the eighth.
The Rays were working on a three-hit shutout before Boston tied it off Tampa Bay closer Alex Colome.
Ramirez singled in one run, J.D. Martinez grounded into a double play and then Xander Bogaerts doubled over the outstretched glove of left fielder Mallex Smith against the Green Monster to tie it.
Boston loaded the bases before Bradley hit a grounder toward second.
Opting not to step on the bag for the force out, second baseman Daniel Robertson threw to first and beat Bradley by a split-second; after a challenge by Red Sox manager Alex Cora — with the crowd cheering the replays on the scoreboard — the call stood.
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