Red Sox Notes: Boston Shows ‘Character’ Despite Extra Innings Loss

After taking the lead in the top of the 11th inning, the Red Sox fell to the Rays in a crushing extra innings walk-off Tampa Bay win at Tropicana Field on Tuesday night.

The Rays had the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th, but Adam Duvall collected the fly ball from Christian Bethancourt and threw Josh Lowe at home to end the inning.

ADAM DUVALL DOES IT ALL ❗️ pic.twitter.com/46Z4EKq0bz

— Red Sox (@RedSox) September 6, 2023

“I always feel like you can change the game on two sides of the ball — offense or defense,” Duvall told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “Obviously, it wasn’t my night on offense. So to be able to contribute on defense, that was big. But, still kicking myself for not driving those runs in.”

Duvall has been hot at the plate as of late but went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts in the loss and 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position.

“We had a lot of chances; me, myself I should say, to drive runners in,” Duvall said. “And for whatever reason, I didn’t do it. So I felt like it was a lost opportunity for me because I’m supposed to drive those runners in.”

The Red Sox never led in the game until the final inning when Luis Urías reached on an infield single allowing Rob Refsnyder to score the go-ahead run for Boston.

Unfortunately for the Red Sox, Kenley Jansen earned his first blown save on the road this season when he left a 94-MPH cutter over the center of the plate for Brandon Lowe to hit 393 feet out of the park for the three-run home run to complete the walk-off.

“Right now, it doesn’t feel good,” Duvall said. “But I think we’re all professional enough to be able to when we show up tomorrow to realize that we fought and we grinded and we didn’t quit and so that says a lot about the character of the guys. We’ll show up tomorrow ready to go for that game and we’ll do what we do to prepare and try and win that ball game.”

Red Sox manager Alex Cora also acknowledged the grind Boston put into the game.

“It was a good game, we battled our asses off tonight,” Cora told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “We played good baseball against a team that, they’re really good at what they do. But, we’re good too. it just happened that we were short tonight.”

With the loss, the Red Sox remain 4 1/2 games behind in the American League wild-card race.

“We’re here to win games. We look around, we know what’s going on (in the standings). We have a chance and a lot of people don’t feel that way. … We just got to keep playing hard. Keep going and we’re going to be okay.”

Here are more notes from Tuesday’s Red Sox-Rays game:

— The Red Sox fell to 25-49 when their opponent scores first, 65-24 when they score four or more runs, 57-40 when they hit a home run and 2-3 in extra innings.

— Kutter Crawford pitched 3 2/3 innings allowing five runs on three hits and walking four batters in the no decision. He threw 58.3% of his pitches for strikes (56-of-96 pitches) while striking out five batters.

— Ceddanne Rafaela had a solid night at the plate going 3-for-6 with two runs scored in the loss. The shortstop is slashing .429/.429/.500 in the six games he’s played since being promoted from Triple-A Worcester.

— The Red Sox seek to bounce back against the Rays and win the series in the finale on Wednesday night. First pitch from The Trop is scheduled for 6:40 p.m. ET, and you can watch it on NESN after an hour of pregame coverage.