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Lest(er) We Forget, The Sox Have The Makings Of Another Ace
By Administrator | August 18, 2008
After experiencing a bump in the road against the White Sox ten days ago, Jon Lester has returned to the fast lane in grand style in his last two outings.
At Camden Yards this evening, Lester played “the stopper” after the Red Sox suffered consecutive home losses to the Toronto Blue Jays. In the first game of a critical nine-game road trip against AL East opponents, Lester shut down the Baltimore Orioles over seven innings, allowing only one run on four hits and a walk while striking out five batters. The only run he surrendered was on an Aubrey Huff home run in the fourth inning. He left the game with a 4-1 lead, en route to a 6-3 Sox win over the O’s.
Jason Bay connected for a two-run home run in the eighth inning to extend the Red Sox lead to 4-1… Bay had four rbi in tonight’s game and now has sixteen rbi in the sixteen games he has been a member of the Red Sox. Ummm, Manny who? AP photo
Newly-acquired Jason Bay led the Red Sox offense with three hits, including two home runs, and four rbi… in sixteen games in Boston, he is now batting .348 (23-for-66) with three home runs and sixteen rbi. David Ortiz (2-for-5) was the only Red Sox hitter to have more than one hit tonight. Jason Varitek hit a solo home run (#9) in the second inning.
Reliever Manny Delcarmen retired the first two batters in the eighth inning and then walked the next two batters before being pulled in favor of Jonathan Papelbon… the Sox closer surrendered a two-run double to Huff before retiring the last four batters he faced to earn his 33rd save.
The Sox scored a pair of runs in the second inning on homers by Bay and Varitek. After Huff cut the Boston lead in half, the pitchers took control of the game. The Red Sox maintained their 2-1 lead until the eighth inning… that’s when Bay provided two insurance runs with his 25th home run of the season (22 with Pittsburgh, 3 with Boston).
After the O’s scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Red Sox responded with two runs of their own in the top of the ninth inning on David Ortiz’ rbi-double and Bay’s rbi-grounder. With the insurance runs on the board, Pappy cruised in the bottom of the ninth inning.
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O’s starter Jeremy Guthrie gave up two runs on five hits over seven innings and was saddled with his ninth loss. He is now just 10-9 despite a 3.15 ERA.
Tonight he was again victimized by a lack of run support — Orioles hitters have scored a grand total of fourteen runs in his nine losses. In spite of the offensive woes, the right-hander had won each of his previous four starts, surrendering only one run in each game.
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With tonight’s win, Lester improved his career mark against Baltimore to 5-0.
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Lester on Lester: “I don’t think my mind-set has changed since April. (Maybe I’m) more consistent, pound the zone. If you can show guys you’re ahead in the zone, they’re going to swing at pitches early in the count that aren’t necessarily good pitches to hit. I was able to do that tonight”.
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With the Rays winning again, the Red Sox remain 4 1/2 games back in the AL East… they maintain a 1 1/2-game lead on Minnesota in the Wild Card standings.
Topics: Sox Games, Sox Players |
