October 5, 2013: Red Sox beat Rays in Game 2 behind David Ortiz’s two home runs

Fresh off a 12-2 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game One of the American League Division Series the afternoon before, the Boston Red Sox took an early lead in Game Two at Fenway Park and held it even as the Rays kept chipping away. “Momentum is what wins games,” said left fielder Jonny Gomes beforehand. “We can’t take our foot off the gas pedal.”1

The pitching matchup was John Lackey for the Red Sox against David Price of the Rays.

Lackey had a losing season for a winning team in 2013. The Red Sox had finished first in the AL East Division with a record of 97-65, but Lackey’s own record was just 10-13. Still, his 3.52 ERA was better than the team’s 3.79. He’d lost eight of his last 12 decisions – and the Red Sox were shut out in five of the losses. The 34-year-old right-hander – the winning pitcher in Game Seven of the World Series as a rookie with the Anaheim Angels in 2002 – was making his 13th career postseason start and 15th appearance.

Price, the 2012 AL Cy Young Award winner, had eight prior postseason appearances, including a win against the Red Sox in Game Two of the 2008 ALDS as a rookie.2 He had struggled in the postseason since then, though, losing two games in the 2010 Division Series against the Texas Rangers and Game Three in the 2011 ALDS, also against the Rangers. In 2013 the 28-year-old left-hander was 10-8 with a 3.33 ERA. He had done well in five starts against the Red Sox that season, striking out 30, walking only three, and limiting Boston to a .167 batting average, while going 2-2 with a 2.48 ERA.

Lackey had runners on first and second with one out in the top of the first, thanks to a walk and a single, but was saved by Evan Longoria hitting into a double play, third to first.

The Red Sox scored the game’s first two runs in the bottom of the inning. Jacoby Ellsbury, whose 52 steals led the majors in 2013, led off by dropping a single into right field. He quickly got himself in to scoring position with a steal, and advanced to third when catcher José Molina’s throw went awry.3 Though Ellsbury had to hold when Shane Victorino grounded out third to first, he scored on Dustin Pedroia’s sacrifice fly to right-center field. The next batter was David Ortiz, who homered into the Red Sox bullpen for a 2-0 lead.4

The Rays got one back in the second, starting with a walk by leadoff batter Ben Zobrist. Next up was center fielder Desmond Jennings, who lined a single to center, Zobrist going to third. DH Delmon Young hit a fly ball to right field and Zobrist scored.

In the bottom of the third, the Red Sox bumped their lead to 4-1. Catcher David Ross doubled off the wall in left to start things off. Ellsbury doubled to left, too, driving in Ross, a flare that went over third base and landed just fair, rolling to the barrier. Victorino singled, Ellsbury moving up 90 feet. With runners at the corners, Pedroia grounded to third. Longoria took the force at second, as Ellsbury scored. Ortiz hit into a double play to end the inning.

With a leadoff single, Longoria was the only one to reach base for the Rays in the fourth. The Red Sox added a run to make it 5-1 on a leadoff walk to first baseman Mike Napoli and a two-out triple off the left-field wall by shortstop Stephen Drew. Rays left fielder David DeJesus, playing left field in Fenway for the first time in five years, misplayed Drew’s drive off the Green Monster and had to chase the carom toward the infield as Napoli and Drew dashed around the bases.5

Tampa Bay got back into it with two runs in the top of the fifth. Yunel Escobar hit a leadoff ground-rule double that glanced off Will Middlebrooks’ glove at third base and into an auxiliary photo pit in left. After one out, Lackey hit DeJesus with a pitch. First baseman James Loney’s two-out double off the center-field wall brought them both in.

The Red Sox had an answer in their half of the inning. Ellsbury singled for his third hit of the game, and Pedroia doubled into the left-field corner, letting Ellsbury run all the way home to make it 6-3. It was Pedroia’s third RBI of the game.

In the sixth the Rays made it a two-run game again with a leadoff single by Jennings, a groundout, and then an RBI single to right by Escobar.

At that point, it was up to the Red Sox bullpen to preserve the lead. Craig Breslow relieved Lackey after Escobar’s hit, got the final two outs, and then worked a scoreless seventh – though he did hit Loney and walk Longoria, he was bailed out by Zobrist hitting into a 4-6-3 double play. Junichi Tazawa faced only three batters in the top of the eighth, also saved by a 4-6-3 double play.6 

Price had kept the game close with clean innings in the sixth and seventh, but David Ortiz led off the bottom of the eighth with a solo home run, his second of the game, a high drive over the Pesky Pole on the right-field foul line and just fair. That made it 7-4. It was Ortiz’s 14th lifetime postseason home run, and it gave him the only multi-homer postseason game of his career.

Jake McGee relieved Price at this point. Though he gave up two singles, there was no more scoring. “Relentless” was the word manager John Farrell used to describe his team’s 19-run, 25-hit offense in the first two games.7

Koji Uehara came in the ninth to close out the game. He struck out Matt Joyce, struck out Jose Lobaton, and got Wil Myers to ground out to first base unassisted.8 It was his first career postseason save. By the time the 2013 postseason was over, Uehara had earned a total of seven saves – and a World Series championship ring.

The two teams headed out after the game for St. Petersburg to play Game Three at Tropicana Field on Monday, October 7. The Red Sox held a two-games-to-zero lead in the best-of-five ALDS.

The challenge was considerable. As a Florida writer put it: “The Rays now have to beat the Red Sox – who have scored 19 runs in two games – three times in a row to advance to the ALCS. In layman’s terms, that’s like climbing Mount Everest barefoot one time, then doing it again, then doing it again. The odds, as they say, are not good.”9

Boston newspapers were tougher. Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe wrote, “Do we really have to go to Tampa/St. Pete? Can’t we just forgo the formalities?” – and move on to the ALCS.

Rays manager Joe Maddon, on the other hand, put on a good face, looking ahead to winning two at home, then taking it to Game Five: “Boston this time of year is kind of lovely. I’m looking forward to coming back in a few days.”10

Lackey hadn’t done particularly well in this game, yielding four earned runs in 5⅓ innings, but he still got the win. He later won Game Three of the ALCS against the Detroit Tigers and – as in 2002 – the clinching Game Six of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.  

David Price was an All-Star for the Rays in 2014 but was dealt to the Tigers at the end of July. He made his way to the Red Sox in 2016. With the 2018 Red Sox, Price won the clinching Game Five of the 2018 ALCS against Houston, and then won both Game Two and Game Five of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and YouTube.com. Thanks to Jay Caldwell for supplying Tampa Bay Times coverage.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS201310050.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2013/B10050BOS2013.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm0BCpXcV9o

Photo credit: David Ortiz, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Johnny Gomes TBS broadcast interview, seen before the airing of the game, and captured on YouTube at “Red Sox Take a Commanding 2-0 Lead,” YouTube Video (MLBGlobal13), 3:24:57, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm0BCpXcV9o. Accessed September 26, 2024. In Game One, the Red Sox were playing after four days off.

2 He was in the right place at the right time, retiring the final two Red Sox batters in the top of the 11th inning and then seeing Boston’s Mike Timlin give up three walks and a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 11th, handing Price the win.

3 With the steal, the Red Sox had been successful in 42 consecutive stolen-base attempts.

4 The ball was caught by Red Sox reliever Franklin Morales, who then flipped it into the crowd behind. A photograph of the catch appeared on page C10 of the next day’s Boston Globe.

5 The Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo wrote, “The Rays have played as it they have never seen Fenway Park before. The left fielders didn’t seem to have an inkling of how to play the wall.” Nick Cafardo, “Smash Hits Have Relentless Beat,” Boston Globe, October 6, 2013: C10.

6 The Globe said that turning three double plays in a postseason game was something the Red Sox hadn’t done since Game Four of the 1918 World Series. Peter Abraham, “He Was Welcome Distraction,” Boston Globe, October 6, 2013: C11.

7 Cafardo. Tampa Bay had very good pitchers; Red Sox batters had hit just .208 off them during the regular season. But the hits and walks and runs were adding up: Rays pitchers had a 10.13 ERA in the first two games of the ALDS.

8 Red Sox fans were still riding Myers for letting a ball fall in behind him in Game One. He handled himself well, as noted in the press: “You gotta love Rays rookie outfielder Wil Myers. Give the kid credit, he took some major ribbing from the Boston crowd and handled it with class and grace. The Fenway Park crowd started riding Myers early in Game 1 when he backed off catching a fly ball. They jeered him with ‘Myyyy-errrrs, Myyy-errrs’’ for the rest of Game 1 and for Game 2. Yet, he showed what kind of person he is by signing autographs for Red Sox fans before Game 2 and then flashed a big smile after he got a standing ovation for catching a routine fly ball in the fifth inning Saturday.” Tom Jones, “Shooting from the Lip: Day’s Best and Worst,” Tampa Bay Times, October 6, 2013: 1C.

9 Gary Shelton, “On the Brink,” Tampa Bay Times, October 6, 2013: 1A. Shelton added, “Watching the way the Sox mashed the best pitcher on the Rays on Saturday, that seems a little formidable, doesn’t it? In the end, perhaps the Rays were leaning too hard on Price. Since the final out of Friday’s series opener, everyone in the clubhouse talked about Price as the great equalizer.”

10 Peter Abraham, “Double Barreled,” Boston Globe, October 6, 2013: C1.