NBC on Yahoo SportsDavid Ortiz homers as Boston Red Sox end Tampa Bay Rays' run at 9
It came too late too save their playoff push, but at the very least, David Ortiz helped the Red Sox save some face Sunday.
Ortiz clobbered his fifth home run of an otherwise disappointing road trip in the third inning and it somehow stood up enough for the Red Sox to steal a 3-2 victory over Tampa Bay, thus avoiding the embarrassment of a weekend series sweep by the surging Rays.
The win snapped a five-game losing streak for the Sox who won only the first and last games of their seven-game trip, while also curtailing the Rays' nine-game winning streak.
A one-out walk to Daniel Nava and an infield single by Dustin Pedroia set the stage for Ortiz, who was booed heavily througout the series. He launched a massive shot deep into the seats in right for his 25th homer of the season.
The Sox didn't score again off starter Chris Archer or a succession of relievers, but after two runs in the bottom of the same inning, neither did the Rays.
Allen Webster, making his first start of the season for the Sox, struggled with his command over 5 1/3, issuing five walks. But other than yielding a two-run double to left to Desmond Jennings in the third, managed to control the damage when necessary.
He had only one 1-2-3 inning -- the second -- but got some big outs in the third after when he stranded runners at second and third and again in the fourth when he wiggled out of a first-and-second jam.
Craig Breslow, Edward Mujica, Andrew Miller, Junichi Tazawa and Koji Uehara followed Webster, with Uehara overcoming a leadoff single by Yunel Escobar, representing the tying run, to nail down his 21st save.
