Red Sox Beat Rays 5-3 on Opening Day

By Jeff Christenbury in Featured, Red Sox, Top Story ⋅ April 7, 2009 at 3:03pm ⋅ Post a comment

Josh Beckett (1-0) was dominant against the Rays on Opening Day, going seven strong innings with one run and 10 strikeouts. After a shaky eighth inning with Hideki Okajima and Justin Masterson, Jonathan Papelbon came on in the ninth and slammed the door shut with a perfect ninth inning for the save.

James Shields was not nearly as impressive, lasting just 5 1/3 innings and allowing five runs on nine hits and three walks. He was battered around all day, falling victim to Dustin Pedroia (1-3, HR), Kevin Youkilis (2-4), and of all people…Jason Varitek. Tek went 1-4 with a surprisingly powerful HR that he curved around Pesky’s Pole.

Sports of Boston had you covered with live blog action throughout the whole game. View the live blog in its entirety below.

Tags: Josh Beckett, Live Blog, Opening Day, Red Sox, Tampa Bay Rays

Discussion

3 comments for “Red Sox Beat Rays 5-3 on Opening Day”

[...] Gotta love baseball season… can’t wait until work is over for the day so I can go catch the game… yay! Until then, I may/may not be checking the live blog running at Sports of Boston. [...]

Posted by Mollytics! | April 7, 2009, 5:08 pm
Red Sox Opening Day Live Blog: We’ll be live blogging the Red Sox home opener against the Rays, first pitc.. http://tinyurl.com/d9qeoj

Posted by Sports of Boston | April 7, 2009, 4:47 pm
[...] Red Sox opened the season on a high note after taking Game 1 from the Rays despite the first game being postponed by rain to Tuesday. Josh Beckett was dominant, and if that [...]

Posted by Red Sox Start Season Slowly | Sports of Boston | April 13, 2009, 7:31 am