Kameron Misner went 3-for-4 with two homers and three RBIs, leading a 16-hit attack as the Tampa Bay Rays plated 14 runs in the first three innings and walloped the visiting Boston Red Sox 16-1 on Monday night.
The Rays set season highs in hits and runs as they cranked out four-run and nine-run innings in the opener of a three-game set against their American League East foe.
Christopher Morel was 3-for-4 with a double, two runs and two RBIs. Yandy Diaz was 2-for-4 with a leadoff homer, two runs and two RBIs as every Rays batter scored and had an RBI in the first three frames.
Junior Caminero went 2-for-5 with a homer, two runs and two RBIs. Jonathan Aranda had two hits, two runs and two RBIs. Jake Mangum had two hits and scored twice.
Featuring a sharp 12-to-6 curveball, Rays starter Shane Baz (2-0) yielded one run on two hits in six innings. The right-hander fanned a career-high 11 without a walk and faced just 20 batters.
Boston’s Kristian Campbell went 2-for-3 with a homer and has reached base in all 17 games he has played, but the visitors had only six hits in losing for the third time in four games.
The Rays hammered Boston starter Tanner Houck (0-2), who lasted just 2 1/3 innings, surrendering 12 runs (11 earned) and 10 hits. He walked two and struck out one.
Diaz jumped all over a first-pitch 93 mph sinker and sent it 415 feet to center to lead off the first. Misner, Houck’s college teammate at Missouri, swatted a two-run homer 431 feet to center in the second.
With runners on first and second and two outs in the second, Brandon Lowe’s lined single to left plated Taylor Walls and Mangum for a 5-0 lead.
In the third, Boston broke through on Campbell’s homer.
Walls’ RBI fielder’s choice and a fielding error by Boston third baseman Alex Bregman scored two more to ignite a nine-run third. Mangum’s RBI single made it 8-1. Diaz and Caminero singled in runs before Aranda and Morel stroked consecutive two-run doubles.
Caminero went deep in the fifth and Misner hit a solo homer in the eighth for the final tally.
