Jonny Gomes brings home another run for the Boston Red Sox in an easy Game 1 ALDS win.  RED SOX 12, RAYS 2  BOSTON — The Red Sox lineup is relentless. Given an inch, Boston takes the proverbial mile. And in Game 1 of its AL division series against Tampa Bay Friday, it got much more than an inch.  The usually sure-handed Rays misplayed four balls in the bottom of the fourth inning — the worst gaffe being right fielder Wil Myers letting a routine fly ball drop in — and the Red Sox made them pay with five runs as they went on to a 12-2 beatdown before 38,177 at Fenway Park.  RELATED: FEINSAND: BOSTON SHOWS CITY HEARTS ARE GOING STRONG  The Rays thrived under the pressure of elimination as they won the regular-season finale in Toronto on Sunday, the AL tiebreaker game at Texas on Monday and the AL wild card game in Cleveland on Wednesday. They didn’t have that pressure Friday, and played like it.  “Mistakes will kill you,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “We’re normally not the team that makes those kind of mistakes. We did tonight.”  The Rays looked as good as ever up to that point, leading 2-0 on homers off Jon Lester (7.2 innings, 3 hits, 7 Ks) by Sean Rodriguez and Ben Zobrist, with Matt Moore holding the Red Sox hitless. Dustin Pedroia singled to start the bottom of the fourth, and David Ortiz followed with a shot to the warning track in right center. Myers signaled for it and was under the ball before breaking off his pursuit at the last instant. The ball hit the track and bounded into the Boston bullpen for a ground-rule double. After a Mike Napoli popup, ex-Ray Jonny Gomes lashed a two-run double off the Green Monster, his first postseason hit, tying the score.  RELATED: BRAVES HOLD OFF DODGERS IN GAME 2 OF NLDS, EVEN SERIES  “I hand-motioned I had the ball (to center fielder Desmond Jennings). I was under the ball,” Myers said. “Then I saw Des out of the corner of my eye and backed off. That was totally my fault.” He would spend the rest of the game listening to the Boston crowd derisively chanting his last name.  The rookie said he never heard anyone call for the ball — not Jennings, someone in the Boston bullpen or someone in the stands — and that “the center fielder has authority on that play.” But he added, “I have to take control of that situation. It won’t happen again.”  The next miscue was first baseman James Loney’s decision to go for Stephen Drew's two-out grounder instead of deferring to second baseman Zobrist. Drew beat Moore to first for a single, while Gomes never let up and scored the go-ahead run from second.  RELATED: COLE DELIVERS LIKE A VET AS PIRATES EVEN NLDS WITH 7-1 WIN  Before it was over, Rodriguez would misplay a tough bounce off the Monster that went for a Will Middlebrooks RBI double and catcher Jose Lobaton would let the third strike on Jacoby Ellsbury go to the backstop before Shane Victorino’s RBI single.  “(Moore) got six outs in that inning, six legitimate outs to get through,” Maddon said.  The Sox batted around a second time in the fifth, scoring three more runs on Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s two-run double and Ellsbury's RBI single. By the end every Boston starter had a hit and a run scored, the third time that's happened in postseason history and first since the 1936 Yankees did so. The Red Sox racked up 14 hits.  “Our lineup never stops applying pressure, one through nine,” Gomes said. “We got some extra opportunities and we never let up.”
After playing three must-win games in four days the Tampa Bay Rays finally got to play a game without the pressure of elimination bearing down on them. And they played like it.