Major League Baseball
BOXSCORE | RECAP
Boston 3, Tampa Bay 0
When: 1:40 PM ET, Sunday, August 31, 2014
Where: Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida
Temperature: Indoors
Umpires: Home - Mike Estabrook, 1B - Jerry Layne, 2B - Toby Basner, 3B - Mike DiMuro
Attendance: 16822

Red Sox 3, Rays 0: Clay Buchholz allowed only three hits to record his second shutout of the season and snap a seven-game winless streak as visiting Boston edged Tampa Bay.

Mookie Betts collected two hits and an RBI while Christian Vazquez and David Ortiz each knocked in a run for the Red Sox, who have won two of the first three in the series. Buchholz (6-8) struck out six, did not walk a batter and threw only 98 pitches to notch his sixth career shutout.

Alex Cobb (9-7) saw his seven-game winning streak end and lost for the first time in 12 outings, yielding two runs (one earned) on seven hits over 6 1/3 innings for the Rays. Matt Joyce, Kevin Kiermaier and Jose Molina had the only hits for Tampa Bay, which has lost 10 of its last 15 games.

Xander Bogaerts registered the first of his two hits to open the third inning, moved up two bases on Cobb’s error on a pickoff attempt and scored on Vazquez's single to right field. Brock Holt singled with two outs in the fifth, stole second and came home on Betts’ single to right-center for a 2-0 lead.

Molina singled to lead off the sixth inning for the Rays, but Buchholz responded by striking out the next three batters to end the threat. The Red Sox added to their lead in the eighth when Betts doubled to center field and sprinted home on a single by Ortiz, which gave him 95 RBIs on the season.

GAME NOTEBOOK: Boston 2B Dustin Pedroia, who experienced symptoms consistent with a concussion after taking an inadvertent elbow to the head from Tampa Bay’s Logan Forsythe on a play at second base Saturday, was held out of the lineup. … The Rays have committed at least one error in eight consecutive games, their longest streak since Aug. 29-Sept. 11, 2004, when they went a club-record 11 contests in a row with an error. … Ortiz was 1-for-3 with a walk and has reached base in 26 of his last 43 plate appearances.
Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
Boston   Tampa Bay
Clay Buchholz Player Alex Cobb
Win W/L Loss
9.0 IP 6.1
6 Strikeouts 6
3 Hits 7
0.00 ERA 1.42
Hitting
Boston   Tampa Bay
Mookie Betts Player Matt Joyce
2 Hits 1
1 RBI 0
0 HR 0
3 TB 2
.500 Avg .333
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
Boston 9 0 11 .257 14 10 3 1 1 0
Tampa Bay 3 0 4 .103 6 6 0 0 0 1