{"id":769509,"date":"2026-07-18T03:22:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T03:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/769509\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T03:22:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T03:22:21","slug":"red-sox-beat-rays-5-3-to-sweep-doubleheader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/769509\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox beat Rays 5-3 to sweep doubleheader"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON (AP) \u2014 Wilyer Abreu homered twice, All-Star Willson Contreras went deep in his first game back from a five-game suspension, and the Boston Red Sox extended their winning streak to 11 games with a 5-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday night to sweep a doubleheader.<\/p>\n

The streak is the longest for the Red Sox since Sept. 15-25, 2016, and Boston (48-48) moved to .500 for the first time since its second game of the season.<\/p>\n

Abreu and Contreras homered back-to-back in the first inning after the Rays jumped to a 2-0 lead. Abreu tied it with his two-run shot and Contreras followed with his 21st of the season.<\/p>\n

Contreras was suspended for his actions during a benches-clearing incident against Washington last month. The suspension was reduced from seven games on appeal.<\/p>\n

All-Star slugger Junior Caminero hit his 29th homer for AL-best Tampa Bay, which also got a two-run single from Johnny DeLuca. Caminero’s longball tied it at 3-all in the third.<\/p>\n

Abreu put the Red Sox back ahead in the bottom half with his 13th homer. It was his sixth career game with multiple home runs.<\/p>\n

Greg Weissert (2-2) was one of six Red Sox relievers to combine for 6 2\/3 scoreless innings. All-Star closer Aroldis Chapman pitched a perfect ninth for his 20th save.<\/p>\n

Anthony Siegler doubled in a run in the fifth for Boston.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay starter Mason Englert (0-3) allowed five runs in five innings.<\/p>\n

In Friday\u2019s opener, the Red Sox beat the Rays 10-0<\/a> behind six sharp innings from rookie Jake Bennett and homers from Masataka Yoshida and Carlos Navarez.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay LHP Ian Seymour (6-2, 4.59 ERA) is slated to start on Saturday against Boston LHP Patrick Sandoval (0-0, 2.08).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON (AP) \u2014 Wilyer Abreu homered twice, All-Star Willson Contreras went deep in his first game back from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2724,2808,363,3,91204,99,624,974],"class_list":["post-769509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-associated-press","tag-florida","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-professional-baseball","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-rays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}