ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Griffin Jax tossed five shutout innings and the Tampa Bay Rays crept closer to the AL East title with a 5-1 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Rays will have an opportunity to clinch the franchise\u2019s fifth division title during Tuesday\u2019s doubleheader at the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, the Red Sox later secured a playoff berth when the Houston Astros lost to the Atlanta Braves. The Red Sox waited out the Astros-Braves result and held a celebration in their clubhouse. The Red Sox, who were 32-46 and 15 1\/2 games back in the AL East on June 24, have since gone 52-25.<\/p>\n
Jax (8-10) allowed three singles and worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth inning by striking out Roman Anthony. Cole Sulser, Brody Hopkins and Steven Matz each pitched an inning of scoreless relief.<\/p>\n
Boston\u2019s Trevor Story spoiled the shutout in the ninth with a one-out home run off right-hander Ty Johnson.<\/p>\n
The Rays scored four first-inning runs off left-hander Patrick Sandoval (1-7). Jonny DeLuca smashed a two-run, bases-loaded double down the left-field line and Chandler Simpson followed with a two-run single. Sandoval began the inning by walking Yandy Diaz and Ryan Vilade, then surrendering a single to Junior Caminero.<\/p>\n
Sandoval then retired 21 of his next 23 batters and worked through the seventh inning, allowing only a first-inning walk and a fourth-inning homer, both to Victor Mesa Jr.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
After a day off Monday, Boston will start LHP Payton Tolle (9-6, 3.02) at home against the Cleveland Guardians. Right-hander Nick Martinez (15-4, 2.94) is set to start the opener of the doubleheader in New York, while right-hander Drew Rasmussen (15-5, 2.72) to pitch Game 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Griffin Jax tossed five shutout innings and the Tampa Bay Rays crept closer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2205,28,115,29645,110,135,3815,137,136],"class_list":["post-405877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-associated-press","tag-florida","tag-news","tag-professional-baseball","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}