EditorsNote: Adds who was at-bat for game-ending strikeout in final graph
J.D. Martinez, Andrew Benintendi and Sam Travis clouted homers in a seven-run third inning, and Eduardo Rodriguez fired seven innings of two-hit, shutout ball to lead the Boston Red Sox to a 9-4 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday night in St. Petersburg, Fla.
The three-homer barrage occurred after Rafael Devers opened the scoring in the third with a two-RBI double.
Rodriguez (12-4) gave up only infield singles to Guillermo Heredia and Michael Brosseau, and he didn't allow a Rays player to reach second base.
The lefty struck out six and walked four in winning his fourth straight start. Rodriguez is 8-1 in his past 11 starts.
Benintendi went 3-for-5 and finished a triple short of the cycle. Martinez drove in four runs with his homer and a double.
Marco Hernandez and Xander Bogaerts also had two hits apiece for Boston.
The visiting team improved to 9-1 in the season series.
Heredia, Brosseau and Travis d'Arnaud notched two-hit nights for the Rays.
After a pair of scoreless innings, Boston broke out against Rays starter Jalen Beeks (5-1) in a frame that saw 10 Red Sox hitters bat.
In his first start this season, Beeks, a 2014 Boston draft pick, yielded a one-out single to Hernandez and a walk to Mookie Betts. Devers then stroked a two-run double into the left-center gap.
Following a walk to Bogaerts, Martinez clubbed a fastball up in the strike zone to dead center for his 20th homer to make it 5-0.
Benintendi, a teammate of Beeks at the University of Arkansas in 2014, lofted a moon shot off his fellow Razorback to right field for his eighth homer.
Travis then hit his second homer of the year -- the sixth time this season the Red Sox have swatted back-to-back long balls.
Bogaerts made it 8-0 when he doubled in Hernandez off reliever Chaz Roe in the fourth to knock in Hernandez.
Against Boston reliever Nathan Eovaldi in the eighth, d'Arnaud and Austin Meadows produced RBI doubles, and Yandy Diaz singled home a run.
Martinez doubled in a run with soft-tossing Brosseau, the Rays' starting second baseman, pitching the ninth.
Tommy Pham doubled in Mike Zunino in the ninth for Tampa Bay's final run. Yandy Diaz was charged with a game-ending strikeout even though he left earlier in the at-bat after fouling a pitch off his foot and Nate Lowe actually finished the at-bat.
--Field Level Media
