Inside The Rays

McClanahan Shines Again as Rays Continue Dominance Over Red Sox in 4-1 Win

Tampa Bay starter Shane McClanahan allowed one run or less for the seventh straight outing on Wednesday night, setting more records in the process while leading the Rays to a 4-1 win over the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday. That's five in a row against Boston in the past eight days.

Tom Brew

McClanahan Shines Again as Rays Continue Dominance Over Red Sox in 4-1 Win
McClanahan Shines Again as Rays Continue Dominance Over Red Sox in 4-1 Win /

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Shane McClanahan starts, he pitches great, and the Tampa Bay Rays win. It's as easy as 1-2-3.

McClanahan and the Rays did it again on Wednesday night, beating the Boston Red Sox 4-1 for their third straight win in this series and their fifth overall against their bitter American League East rival in the past eight days. Tampa Bay has outscored them 32-13 over that stretch and won their third straight series against the Red Sox this season, with a final game coming on Thursday night at Tropicana Field.

McClanahan got his 10th win of the season with another dominating performance. He allowed just one run and three hits over 6 1/3 innings, adding to his record-setting streak of overpowering outings. He had six strikeouts and threw 85 pitches, exiting with one out in the seventh inning to keep his work load down. Relievers Jason Adam, Ryan Thompson and Colin Poche closed it out from there, allowing just two hits.

His ERA is down to a league-leading 1.71 now, and his 146 strikeouts also lead the AL. His stretch of 11 games with six or more innings pitched with seven strikeouts and two runs or less came to an end — just barely — but an even better streak has emerged now.

In his last seven starts, he's gone six or more innings, with at least six strikeouts and just ONE or fewer runs allowed, matching the American League record set by Minnesota's Johan Santana. Only the great Sandy Koufax — who did that eight times in 1962 — has more. In those seven starts, he's 4-1 with a 1.16 ERA.

That's some pretty elite company 

McClanahan was perfect into the fourth inning, and didn't give up anything until the fifth, when the Red Sox, trailing 3-0 at the time, opened the inning with an infield hit by Zander Bogaerts and a singled to center by Alex Verdugo, sending Bogaerts to third. McClanahan then got Christian Vazquez to hit into a double play and struck out Dalbec to end the threat with just the one run scoring on Vazquez's double play ball. 

“It seems like he gets better when guys get on base,” Cash said. “You’re going to pitch with guys on base, certainly in the American League East, whether it’s the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, he’s shown the ability to kind of take a deep breath and make big pitches.

“He forgot about the guy at third and just tried to execute pitches, got the double-play ball and then out of the inning with us still feeling pretty good about ourselves.”

The Rays scored twice in the third inning and tacked on another in the fourth to jump ahead of Boston starter Josh Winckowski. Ji-Man Choi and Harold Ramirez had RBI singles in the third inning and Taylor Walls hit a solo home run in the fourth. They took advantage of some Boston sloppiness in the seventh, when Josh Lowe scored from first on a single when the Red Sox were slow to get the ball back into the infield..

This was McClanahan's last start before the All-Star break, so the 25-year-old lefty will be on full rest come Tuesday night when he makes his first appearance in the All-Star classic. His teammates and manager all believe he's done enough to start that game, but that will be up to Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker, who will likely choose between McClanahan, Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani and his own Justin Verlander of the Astros.

"I'm just honored to go. It's an honor to me to just be included in the conversation,'' McClanahan said. "Whether I get the ball or not, it's an honor just to be there and it's out of my control.''

The Rays and Red Sox wrap up the series on Thursday night with a 7:10 p.m. ET game. Drew Rasmussen (5-3, 3.11 ERA) will start for the Rays. Kutter Crawford, who pitched well in a win over the Rays last week, will get the start for Boston.

The Red Sox will be glad to get out of town. They are now 0-9-1 in series against American League East teams this season and they are now 0-6-1 in the past seven series against the Rays dating back to last year.

The Rays are 48-40 now, and in second place in the AL East, 14 games behind the New York Yankees. They Rays lead the three-team wild card race — and home-field advantage that will come with it — by 1.5 games over the Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and the surging Seattle Mariners. Baltimore, who comes to town for a big weekend series, is now just two games out of a playoff spot.

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Tom Brew
TOM BREW

Tom Brew is the publisher of Inside The Rays, and has been with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation network for three years. He is an award-winning writer and editor who has spent most of his four-decade career at the Tampa Bay Times, Indianapolis Star and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He has written four books.

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