G77: Red Sox 5, Giants 1

Red Sox - 121 000 001 - 5 11  0
Giants  - 100 000 000 - 1  5  0

A day after the Red Sox had to use seven relief pitchers, Lester (9-5-1-1-9, 103) turned in his second complete game of the season, and the sixth of his career.

Lester dominated the Giants for the entire game, retiring the final 10 batters on only 26 pitches. He allowed a first-inning run on a single, two stolen bases and an infield groundout.

Lincecum (3-5-4-3-4, 79) gave up a huge home run to David Ortiz in the first; it landed in the bay. Lester batted with the bases loaded in the second and his long fly ball to deep right-center would have been out of many ball parks, but it was a sacrifice fly in the huge San Francisco pasture. Marco Scutaro followed with an RBI single.

Bill Hall, who doubled and scored in the second, singled in Kevin Youkilis with Boston's fourth run. Adrian Beltre hit a first-pitch home run in the ninth. In addition to Hall, Yook and Scutaro had two hits each. Red Sox batters struck out a season-high 15 times.

Pablo Sandoval fouled a pitch off Victor Martinez's left toe in the second inning and Martinez hopped around in pain so much he ended up out by the mound. He stayed in the game another inning, but was replaced by Jason Varitek in the fourth.

The Rays managed only two hits and lost to the Diamondbacks 2-1. Evan Longoria and B.J. Upton had a confrontation in the dugout, after Longoria spoke to Upton not hustling after a triple hit past him to deep center. The Dodgers were two outs away from a 6-2 win over the Yankees, but New York rallied for four runs in the ninth and two in the tenth and beat Los Angeles 8-6. Boston stays 2 GB; Tampa Bay is 3 GB.

Jon Lester / Tim Lincecum

Scutaro, SS
Nava, LF
Ortiz, 1B
Youkilis, 3B
Martinez, C
Drew, RF
Hall, 2B
McDonald, CF
Lester, P

Lincecum, winner of the 2008 and 2009 NL Cy Young awards, has a 2.86 ERA. He did have three rough outings in late May (15 runs in 15.1 innings), but he has rebounded, with a 2.17 ERA in four June starts. Only Bill Hall, Mike Cameron and newest Sock Eric Patterson have faced Lincecum.

And:

Diamondbacks/Rays, 1:30 PM
Yankees/Dodgers, 8 PM

If you are wondering what is going on this weekend in Toronto, click here (and peruse wmtc, in general).

June 27:

1911 - The A's Stuffy McInnis steps into the batter's box to lead off the 7th inning at Boston's Huntington Avenue Grounds and hits Ed Karger's warm-up pitch for an inside-the-park home run while the Red Sox are still taking their positions. Boston manager Patsy Donovan protests, but umpire Rip Egan allows the home run because of league president Ban Johnson's new rule prohibiting warm-up pitches. That rule was enacted because of complaints that games are taking too long to play; it will soon be withdrawn.

2003 - The Red Sox score 14 runs in the bottom of the first inning against the Marlins. They lead 10-0 before making an out. Johnny Damon singles, doubles, and triples in the half-inning, which takes 50 minutes to play. Boston wins 25-8, but manager Huckleberry Happytalk apologizes to Marlins' skipper Jack McKeon for scoring so many runs. Third base coach Mike Cubbage later admits he waived runners in knowing they would be thrown out because the Marlins "were having a hard time getting outs". (See the July 3 post here.) Inexplicably, Cubbage is not immediately fired. Jesus. Seven years later, this is still pissing me off.