Rays torment Red Sox, Tanner Houck in 16-1 demolishing

Gabrielle Starr, Boston Herald on Apr 14, 2025

Published in Baseball

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TAMPA, Fla. – For the last week, the Boston Red Sox could at least make some excuses for this miserable stretch.

It was horribly frigid and wet at Fenway Park for nearly the entire first homestand, which included a rainout and resulting doubleheader during the opening series with the St. Louis Cardinals, and several extra-inning games. Boston lost starting catcher Connor Wong to a hand fracture last Monday. Rafael Devers barely had a spring training and is still working out the kinks. They’re grinding through a stretch of 20 games in 21 days to begin the season.

So on, so forth.

But as they lost to the Tampa Bay Rays 16-1 in Monday night’s series opener, even the most valid excuses died on the warning track.

Facing this Rays team, which was displaced by Hurricane Milton last fall and forced to sublet the Yankees’ spring training complex for the season, the Red Sox didn’t pitch, didn’t hit and didn’t field.

Last year, batters searching for that big hit against Tanner Houck came up empty nearly every time. In a career-high 30 starts, he only let 11 balls leave the yard. He also dominated Tampa Bay batters last season, posting a 1.08 ERA and holding them to just two earned runs over 16 2/3 innings in three starts against the Rays.

On Monday night, the Rays tore into the Red Sox righty from the very first pitch, which leadoff man Yandy Díaz blasted 415 feet for a home run. The Rays were up 5-0 after the second, and had run away with it by the third.

“It seems like there was a team that was prepared for the other one, the other one wasn’t prepared for them,” said manager Alex Cora. “That wasn’t a good night for us, and I’ll take the blame, because it seemed like our team wasn’t ready.”

The bulk of the damage belonged to Houck – 12 runs (11 earned) on 10 hits, two walks and only one strikeout in 2 1/3 innings – but the Red Sox defense continues to look more swiss-cheese than swiss-army knife. They were only charged with one error in the contest, but several decisions veered into miscue territory.

“Seems like their game plan was on-point against him,” Cora said.

It was the kind of beautiful, balmy night when the ball can soar out of the ballpark, as evidenced by the Rays’ 16 runs. Yet even in a ballpark with identical dimensions to Yankee Stadium, a place where many Boston batters hit well, their lone run was a solo homer by rookie Kristian Campbell, who continues to be a bright spot in a rapidly darkening frieze.

Throughout this stretch, the Red Sox have almost become formulaic. The cadence of their at-bats is predictable. It’s all but guaranteed they’ll go quickly and quietly. By the end of their side of the fifth inning, they’d struck out 10 times. They finished the night with six hits and 14 strikeouts.

The Red Sox are supposed to be better than this. The front office finally spent money to field a better team than this. The players on this roster have shown that they can be so much better than this.

So what gives?

And what, if anything, fixes this team?

Injury updates

Lucas Giolito (hamstring) will make his third rehab start for Triple-A Worcester on Tuesday, followed by Brayan Bello (shoulder) on Wednesday. Bello is ahead of Giolito, Cora said on Monday afternoon. Giolito is likely going to need at least one more rehab outing before being activated.

Reliever Liam Hendriks is also slated to make one more rehab appearance. The plan is for him to be activated during the upcoming homestand with the Chicago White Sox this weekend.

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