Turner's presence, bat spark 6-run burst as Sox split vs. Rays

BOSTON -- This dreary, chilly Saturday at Fenway wasn’t what the late, great Ernie Banks envisioned when he said, “Let’s play two!”

But the Red Sox warmed up their fans with a stirring six-run rally in the bottom of the sixth to turn the tables on the Majors' best team, the Tampa Bay Rays.

Justin Turner's two-out, three-run double off the Green Monster was the go-ahead hit and the Red Sox added on from there in a satisfying 8-5 victory in Game 1 of the day-night doubleheader.

With the game-time temperature down to 48 degrees and the wind swirling at 16 mph for Game 2, the Red Sox put up a strong fight but settled for a split with a 4-2 defeat.

In Game 1, Turner and the Sox were not to be denied, even after the Rays broke out to a 4-0 lead against Sox starter Garrett Whitlock, plating three in the third and another in the fifth.

On a day the wind was constantly knocking down fly balls, Boston at last applied some sustained pressure in that wild bottom of the sixth. Fittingly, it was Turner who applied the big hit, because he was the one brimming with fire for most of the chilly afternoon.

“He’s a good player, he’s a good influence on the kids,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “We fell behind today. And the way we did, it wasn’t a good taste. But he kept going in the dugout and pushing them, and I think it helped us out today.”

Turner, the gritty veteran, missed a 1-1 fastball right down the middle from Jalen Beeks earlier in the at-bat. But he teed off on a 2-2 changeup on the lower, inner half and hammered it high off the wall. On a warmer day, it might have traveled well enough to be a grand slam.

“I hate the weather here,” said Rays first baseman Yandy Díaz. “Obviously it was cold, and that bothers you when you're at bat and on defense. It bothers you both ways.”

But it didn’t bother Turner, who is becoming a hardened Bostonian in his short time with the Red Sox.

“I think you saw in the first inning a couple balls got knocked down,” said Turner. “I just kept mine low enough to where the wind didn't really affect it, but yeah, I’m glad I hit the wall.”

The Red Sox thought maybe they had hit a wall early in the game as they were unable to generate anything impactful against Rays opener Trevor Kelly and the two relievers who came in before Beeks.

But Turner did his best to keep the team focused and provide his teammates with the belief that things would turn.

“Yeah, just every time we came in the dugout, it was just, ‘Come on, let’s go, keep getting another leadoff guy on, let’s build an inning,’” said Turner. “And we’ve been really good at that all year, just building innings and not necessarily scoring every inning but setting things up and putting pressure on them where we get to one swing away from the crooked number.

“We did a good job today of just pushing and pushing and pushing and then eventually, you know, you see the six.”

The Red Sox felt they knew exactly what they were getting in Turner when they signed him as a free agent in December, and he has come as advertised.

“He’s a good player. He’s been doing it for a lot of years, coming from an organization [the Dodgers] that was in the playoffs nine years in a row and he was a big part of it,” said Cora. “Just the at-bat he gives. It’s the quality of the at-bat. He will fight the at-bat, go the other way [at times].”

And on this gloomy Saturday, Turner didn’t want to let the Fenway faithful down.

“I think the atmosphere here every single day, whether it’s a rainy Tuesday or a Saturday night, the fans are here. The fans are loud,” said Turner.

In the nightcap, the Sox nearly pulled off some more late-game heroics. Down 4-2 with two on and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Jarren Duran looped one into center that looked like it might fall.

Rays center fielder Jose Siri sold out with a dive to make the catch, and managed to come up with it.

“The kid made a great play,” said Cora. “He took a chance. If he doesn't make that play, we tie the game.”