September 29, 2024: Red Sox beat Rays in the battle for .500 to end the season

Both the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays reached the final day of the 2024 season, September 29, with records of 80-81. The loser of this Sunday afternoon game would enter the offseason with a losing record and a fourth-place finish in the American League East Division. The winner might not hold true bragging rights, but could at least feel a bit better, not having lost more than it won.

After losing the first two games of the season-ending three-game series to the Rays by scores of 2-1 and 7-2, the Red Sox faced their fate on another final day, albeit with considerably less at stake than in 1948, 1949, or 1978. They had wound up the 1948 season tied with the Cleveland Indians for first place in the AL; they lost a tiebreaking game (and thus the pennant) on October 4. The next year, they were tied for first with the New York Yankees, making the season’s final Sunday a winner-take-all contest. The Red Sox lost that one, too (and the pennant), in New York. In 1978 the Yankees and Red Sox played yet another tiebreaker for the division title. The Yankees also won that one.1  

In the twenty-first century, the Red Sox could boast of four World Series championships: 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018. Coming into 2024, however, they had finished last in the five-team AL East in three of the four previous seasons. At the All-Star break, they were only five games out of first place, with hopes for at least a slot in the playoffs, but their playoff chances had progressively dipped from just over 50 percent on August 6 to under 10 percent by September 1. The Red Sox had ensured they would not finish last again; they were well ahead of the fifth-place Toronto Blue Jays in the division standings.

On September 29, entering the regular season’s final game, Tampa Bay and Boston were both contenders for third place. One was going to win and one was going to lose (barring some unlikely event that might terminate the season without resolution).

The Rays hadn’t had a losing record since 2017. They made the postseason five years in succession, 2019-2023, and won the AL pennant in 2020, but that wasn’t going to happen in 2024. Nonetheless, they naturally wanted to avoid the ignominy of a losing record and had battled valiantly for the victories on Friday and Saturday.

This game also featured the final regular radio broadcast of Joe Castiglione, the longest-tenured broadcaster in Red Sox franchise history with 42 years in the booth. Red Sox players from years past were on hand to honor Castiglione, who had received the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence in July.2 The game drew a large crowd of 34,862.3

Red Sox manager Alex Cora chose Quinn Priester as his starting pitcher. It was the first game the 24-year-old right-hander had ever pitched in a Boston uniform. Two months earlier, he had come from the Pittsburgh Pirates for Nick Yorke in a trade deadline swap of former first-round picks.4

Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash selected righty Ryan Pepiot, who had been 5-1 over parts of two previous seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers and was 8-7 (3.64) in 25 starts with the 2024 Rays. Eleven days earlier, on September 18, Pepiot’s 12 strikeouts in six innings against the Red Sox had included an immaculate inning: a nine-pitch, three-strikeout fifth.5

In addition to the Battle for .500, there was one other element of drama to which some Red Sox fans were attuned. Batting eighth for Boston was Mickey Gasper, a 28-year-old from New England.6 He’d been in the Yankees system through 2023, and split time in 2024 between Boston’s Double-A and Triple-A teams in Portland and Worcester. His major-league debut had been on August 12, when he drew a walk in the bottom of the 10th, to load the bases in a game Rob Refsnyder soon won with a single.

Gasper had appeared in 12 games and had 20 plate appearances but was still looking for his first big-league base hit. Cora had used him at designated hitter on September 28 (he was 0-for-4) and now again for the season finale. Designated to hit – but would he? That was the question.

The game began on a sour note; Priester hit leadoff batter and second baseman Richie Palacios with a pitch. He did, though, then induce two groundouts and a fly-ball out.  

Pepiot nearly pulled off another immaculate inning in the first. He threw 11 pitches and struck out the side, all three on swinging third strikes.

After two outs in the second, the Rays got back-to-back singles, but rookie catcher Logan Driscoll grounded into a force play at second base. In the bottom of the inning, the Red Sox got a one-out walk by Wilyer Abreu and a two-out single to center by Ceddanne Rafaela. That brought up Gasper. On three pitches, he struck out swinging.

The third inning saw three infield groundouts by Rays batters. The Red Sox then got on the board. Jarren Duran lined a one-out single to left-center, and second baseman Vaughn Grissom doubled off the wall in left-center, driving in the speedy Duran.

After Grissom took third on a wild relay from shortstop to the plate, Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas grounded to Rays first baseman Jonathan Aranda, and Grissom dashed for home. Grissom slid safely under Driscoll’s tag. 2-0, Red Sox.

The Rays responded with a run in the top of the fourth. After Priester struck out left fielder Christopher Morel, right fielder Josh Lowe reached on a dribbler of an infield single, which neither Priester nor catcher Connor Wong could reach. Center fielder Jonny DeLuca grounded out weakly, short to first, Lowe taking second base.

Tampa Bay’s DH Dylan Carlson singled into right field, past a diving Grissom. Lowe scored and Carlson took second when rookie shortstop Nick Sogard botched a rundown with a wild throw. But Priester got shortstop José Caballero to ground to his counterpart, Sogard, who threw to Casas for the third out. In the battle for .500, it was Boston 2, Tampa Bay 1.

Rafaela singled with one out in the bottom of the fourth but was thrown out attempting to steal. Gasper drew a walk but was left stranded when Enmanuel Valdez popped up to second base.

The Rays’ Driscoll worked an 11-pitch base on balls to lead off the fifth, but Palacios hit into a 4-6-3 double play and Priester struck out third baseman Junior Caminero. Having worked a full five innings, throwing 89 pitches, Priester would quality for a win – if the Red Sox could hold the one-run lead.

They added an insurance run in the fifth, off lefty reliever Mason Montgomery, working in his ninth big-league game. He struck out Duran and walked Grissom. Casas singled off the base of the left-field wall and Grissom went first to third. Wong grounded to Caballero, who picked up his second error of the game with a poor throw for the attempted force at second, under-handing the ball toward Palacios’ bare hand, rather than his glove. Grissom scored, making it 3-1, Red Sox.

Josh Winckowski relieved Priester to pitch the sixth. He faced five batters – strikeout, single, fly-ball out, single, strikeout. For Boston, with Montgomery pitching his second inning, Sogard singled, Rafaela struck out, and Gasper hit into a 6-4-3 double play.

Luis Guerrero was in for the Red Sox in the seventh. Caballero popped up to first and the next two batters grounded out second to first. In the bottom of the inning, the Rays’ Richard Lovelady got three consecutive groundouts.

Cora turned to veteran Chris Martin for the top of the eighth. There was some concern after Martin hit Aranda with a pitch and Morel singled between first and second, but a strikeout and a lineout to third base ended the inning. Hunter Bigge, who had played college baseball at nearby Harvard University, took the eighth for Tampa Bay. Wong doubled to left-center after one out, but Bigge struck out Abreu and Sogard.

Justin Slaten, in the 44th appearance of his rookie season, worked the top of the ninth.7 Carlson bunted to third base for a leadoff single and the Rays had the potential tying run at the plate in Caballero. He popped up foul to first baseman Casas.8 Swinging at the first pitch, Driscoll lined out to center. It took 10 pitches to retire Palacios, but he also lined out to center and the game was over.

Gasper would have been up second had Boston batted in the ninth. He went into the offseason hitless in 18 major-league at-bats, with four walks and a hit-by-pitch.9

Having scored just one run, the Rays completed what the Tampa Bay Times called “the worst offensive season in their 27-year franchise history.”10

The Red Sox victory anthem – “Dirty Water” by The Standells – played over the Fenway Park sound system.11 The Red Sox had won, 3-1, and evened their record at .500: 81-81.12 For many, it offered some degree of satisfaction (or solace) to end the season without bearing another losing record.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Victoria Monte and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Quinn Priester, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS202409290.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2024/B09290BOS2024.htm

Highlights of the game are available on YouTube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miwIIH08QqY

Thanks to Ken Singletary for providing Tampa Bay newspaper coverage.

Notes

1 These games were all part of the regular season and thus differ from the single-game wild-card game in 2021, in which the Red Sox beat the Yankees, 6-2, for some fans “exorcising” the memories of the 1978 game. The wild-card game is a postseason game.

2 Peter Abraham, “With his favorite players around him, retiring Red Sox radio voice Joe Castiglione got the send-off he so deserved,” Boston Globe, September 29, 2024, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/09/29/sports/retiring-red-sox-radio-voice-joe-castiglione-receives-tributes-former-players/?event=event12. For coverage of the actual event, see Peter Abraham, “Castiglione’s Farewell about Friends, Memories,” Boston Globe, September 30, 2024: C1. Attending were former Red Sox players from each of the World Series championship years Castiglione had broadcast and included Pedro Martínez, Alex Cora, and Jackie Bradley Jr., as well as numerous other players such as Jim Rice, Roger Clemens, Rich Gedman, and Bob Stanley. Former manager Joe Morgan was also present.

3 It was said that “Castig” would broadcast occasional games in years to come. He was, of course, best known for his call in 2004 when the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years: “Can you believe it?” Castiglione was the author of two books with Douglas B. Lyons, Broadcast Rites and Sites: I Saw It on the Radio with the Boston Red Sox (Taylor Trade, 2006) and Can You Believe It? 30Years on Insider Stories with the Boston Red Sox (Triumph Books, 2012).

4 Priester had appeared in 20 games for Pittsburgh in 2023 and 2024, with an overall record of 5-9 and an ERA of 6.46. He had been 1-1 (5.40) in nine appearances (all starts) for the Triple-A Worcester Red Sox.

5 Pepiot received a no-decision in a 2-1 Red Sox win. Adam Berry, “Pepiot Throws Immaculate Inning as Part of Career-High 12-K Night,” MLB.com, September 18, 2024, https://www.mlb.com/news/ryan-pepiot-throws-immaculate-inning.

6 Gasper was born and raised in New Hampshire and attended college in Rhode Island.

7 Joe Castiglione also worked the top of the ninth – with the telecast showing him broadcasting his final half-inning. 

8 Caballero had a rough game, with two errors as Red Sox runs scored. Though he had not added to his total in this game, he did finish the season leading the American League with 44 stolen bases.  His 16 caught stealing, however, led both leagues. He had not attempted either in this game. “Man, I’m just pretty happy about it,” he said after the game. … I’m going to continue to be working better next year.” Marc Topkin, “Caballero Wins American League Stolen Base Title,” Tampa Bay Times, September 30, 2024: 4C.

9 In December 2024, the Red Sox traded Gasper to the Minnesota Twins for left-handed pitcher Jovani Morán.

10 Marc Topkin, “Finale Setback Locks Up a losing Season,” Tampa Bay Times, September 30, 2024: 4C. Topkin quoted starter Pepiot: “Obviously, it’s disappointing. We were tied with (the Red Sox) going into this game and whoever won took away the bronze medal. And I didn’t do my job to help us do it.” Only one of the runs Pepiot allowed had been an earned run. Brandon Lowe was optimistic about the future, noting the sustained success the team had had over the five prior seasons, and the number of players – particularly pitchers – lost to injuries, concluding, “I think people should probably more look at this year as a fluke.”

11 For more on “Dirty Water,” see Chuck Burgess and Bill Nowlin, Love That Dirty Water: The Standells and the Improbable Red Sox Victory Anthem (Burlington, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2007).

12 Alex Cora said, “In the clubhouse, there’s a lot of disappointment. I still believe we had a chance to make it to the playoffs and didn’t play well towards the end, and that’s the reason we’re going home as an organization. But I think we took a step forward from where we were last year. There were a lot of good things that happened this year. I think, as far as structure and the vision, we’re getting there. There’s no moral victories and all that – whatever. But I think we actually did take a step forward. Position-player wise, we’re in a good spot. And the pitching, it’s getting better. We’re going home knowing what might happen in the offseason and where we’re going next year.” Ian Browne, “Red Sox Take 2024 Finale to Finish Up-and-Down Season at .500,” MLB.com, September 29, 2024, https://www.mlb.com/news/quinn-priester-earns-win-in-red-sox-final-game-of-2024.