In his encore, Roman Anthony does it all for Red Sox in home victory over the Rays
Anthony's hit was a two-out, two-run double off righthander Ryan Pepiot in the first inning. He smacked a changeup — which was actually outside, well off the plate — down the left-field line. On a night when the Sox' pitchers held Tampa Bay to three hits and no earned runs, Anthony's knock proved to be the difference.
Trevor Story wrecked Pepiot's 108th and final pitch. The 96-mile-per-hour fastball on the inner edge of the plate wound up over the Green Monster and clearing the ballpark altogether.
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Story's second home run of the month matched his May total.
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With the Red Sox' bullpen shorthanded — including closer Aroldis Chapman being unavailable after pitching the previous three days — Garrett Whitlock tossed two perfect innings with three strikeouts. Greg Weissert recorded his first save of the season with a perfect ninth.
Coming off a mess of a start against the Angels last week, righthander Lucas Giolito rebounded effectively, holding the Rays to one unearned run and three hits in six innings.
Of the three hits, two went off the gloves of Sox defenders. The other was functionally erased by a double play.
José Caballero was credited with a single in the second inning when his line drive to left field was within range of Jarren Duran. As Duran slid, however, the ball clanged off his glove.
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Tampa Bay scratched a run across in the fifth, when it had two on and two out. Yandy Díaz scorched a line drive — at 108 miles per hour — up the middle, where leaping second baseman Kristian Campbell got a piece of it. He prevented a second run from scoring on the play, thereby protecting the lead, but didn't reel in what would have been an inning-ending catch. It went down as an RBI single for Díaz.
Giolito's fielders did help him out in his final frame. Anthony's sliding backhand grab in right field robbed Jonathan Aranda of a hit. And Christopher Morel, Giolito's last batter, rocketed a fly ball an estimated 399 feet to center field, where Ceddanne Rafaela tracked it down. It would have been a home run in 17 ballparks.
For Giolito, the sound outing served as a reward for the work — and soul-searching — he put in with pitching coach Andrew Bailey in the days prior.
When the team was off Thursday, he and Bailey spent the day hammering out what they could do differently, Bailey said. They keyed in on a series of minor delivery/movement items — 'biomech[anical] callouts,' as Bailey described them — to make sure Giolito was moving down the mound the way he is supposed to.
The first bit of feedback was a bullpen session in which Giolito was 'probably the most electric I've seen him,' Bailey said. That doesn't always mean a whole lot regarding in-game results, but they came away encouraged.
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'The pelvis delivers the torso, the torso delivers the shoulder, the shoulder delivers the hand. The ball is the end of the whip,' Bailey said. 'If those aren't sequencing appropriately, you're using some other aspects of your body to deliver the baseball.
'He seems to be in a really good spot. I'm very confident in his ability. He's been around for a really long time. We're going to have tough starts. We're going to have solid starts… It's what we do in the middle, right?'
Tim Healey can be reached at
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