Payton Tolle, Red Sox stumble against Rays on the road to drop 11 games below .500

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Mickey Gasper had an urgent task after Tuesday night’s game.

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The Red Sox had just lost, 4-3, to the Rays, dropping to 27-38 — the farthest south of .500 the team has been since the final day of the woeful 2020 campaign. Gasper’s grounder to first in the ninth inning ended the contest.

But earlier, Gasper had twice threatened the fences. According to Statcast, his 338-foot flyball into the right-field corner in the fourth inning would have been a homer in eight of 30 big league parks; in the Tropicana Dome, it turned into an out when right fielder Austin Slater made a leaping catch against the fence.

And in the seventh inning, with the Sox down 3-1 and a man on base, Gasper again squared a ball that he thought would be a game-tying, two-run homer. In 12 parks, it might have been. In the Trop, Slater settled under the 345-foot, inning-ending flyout.

“I thought I got them both,” rued Gasper.

Vexed by his inability to clear the fences on a night when the Sox lost by one run, Gasper went on a postgame mission.

“I just put in a bat order with [clubhouse manager Tommy McLaughlin], because I’m pretty frustrated with what I got,” he said.

There has been plenty of frustration to share for the Red Sox throughout the 2026 season. The team’s loss to the Rays on Tuesday captured plenty of it.

After the Sox took a 1-0 lead in the third inning against Tampa Bay starter Nick Martinez (who buzz-sawed through the first seven innings of the game in just 67 pitches), the Rays lineup proved true to relentlessly irksome form against Sox starter Payton Tolle.

The Rays are the hardest team in baseball to strike out. Tolle and the Sox experienced a signature display of that high-contact approach — and its consequences for pitchers.

“Balls in play equal hits. They do a good job with that. They always have,” said Sox interim manager Chad Tracy. “Today they just happened to fall in two-out situations with runners in scoring position to tally runs.”

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With two outs in the fourth inning, the Rays strung together three straight run-scoring hits from Cedric Mullins (single on a two-strike sinker to make it 1-1), Ben Williamson (double on a two-strike four-seamer, 2-1), and a Nick Fortes chopper that bounced over third baseman Caleb Durbin and down the left-field line (double, 3-1). The Rays later added another two-out run in the sixth against Tolle.

“I don’t know how many times I got to two strikes today, but once again, another day where I just couldn’t seem to put them away,” said Tolle (3-3, 2.70 ERA), who yielded season-highs in runs (4) and hits (9) while striking out just three in six innings. “[I’ve] just got to get those [fastballs] to where I’m going to get my swing-and-miss.”

While the Sox offered little resistance – save for Gasper’s two near-misses – to Martinez (6-2, 2.43) through seven innings, they nearly overcame their three-run deficit against him in the eighth inning on Tuesday when the bottom of the order finally broke through against the Rays’ righthander.

Durbin led off with a single and reached second on Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s second knock of the game. Both sprinted home when Marcelo Mayer grounded a well-placed double down the right field line, making it a 4-3 game.

But reliever Kevin Kelly played the role of fireman as Martinez’s replacement. He got a groundout from Jarren Duran that advanced Mayer to third. With the infield drawn in and one out, Ceddanne Rafaela smashed a grounder (106 miles pere hour) directly to second baseman Richie Palacios, with Mayer unable to score.

“My approach was through the middle but in the air so I can bring in the run,” said Rafaela. “You don’t control [what happens when you square a ball]. You just want to barrel the ball and hope that does the job.”

Wilyer Abreu followed with an inning-ending groundout against Kelly, ending the last Sox threat. The team went meekly in the ninth against Rays closer Bryan Baker (18 saves), dropping to 12½ games behind the Rays in the AL East.

The Sox have a 6-13 record in the division. The Rays, meanwhile, are 16-6 against the AL East, and have won all 11 of their home games against divisional opponents this season.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” said Gasper. “We’re all trying to help the team win, and we’re knocking at the door every night. … We’re coming up a little short right now, and the only thing you can do is look in the mirror.”

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