Blue Jays - 540 020 040 - 15 18 0 Red Sox - 300 112 000 - 7 9 0Jon Lester (4-9-11-5-2, 94) turned in the worst performance of his seven-year career, allowing 11 runs (including a career-high four home runs) to the Blue Jays. His previous high was nine runs allowed (in only 2+ innings), which happened on August 20, 2010, also at Fenway against Toronto.
The last Red Sox starter to allow 11 earned runs was Doug Bird, back on May 24, 1983. Lester became only the 11th Boston starter since 1918 (and only the third since 1945) to allow 11+ runs in a game.
After the Blue Jays batted around in the first inning - Brett Lawrie swatted Lester's first pitch of the afternoon over the Wall, and five of the next six Jays reached base - Adrian Gonzalez got three runs back by hitting his 9th home run of the year.
But Lester gave those runs back and more, as he walked Lawrie and Edwin Encarnacion and was hit for back-to-back home runs with two outs: J.P. Arencibia's three-run shot and Rajai Davis's solo blast.
Lester kept the Jays off the board in the third and fourth - double plays in both innings helped him out. After he walked Davis and allowed a two-run dong to Travis Snider to start the fifth, Bobby Valentine finally yanked him.
Jaocby Ellsbury hit his first home run of the season, a solo shot in the fifth. ... Two-out doubles by Ryan Sweeney and Mike Aviles and a single from Nick Punto scored two runs in the sixth.
Boston dropped to 48-48 and is in last place (once again) in the East. The Red Sox begin a road trip against the Rangers and Yankees in Texas Monday night.
Ellsbury, CF
Nava, LF
Pedroia, 2B
Gonzalez, 1B
Ross, DH
Saltalamacchia, C
Sweeney, RF
Aviles, SS
Punto, 3B
5 comments:
Maybe Cafardo is getting slicker at stirring shit. In his Sunday column, he manages to get in an Ellsbury jab and knock two members of the Drew family:
"One of the funniest rumors I've heard was the Red Sox being interested in Diamondbacks shortstop Stephen Drew. All the Sox need is another player who takes forever to return from an injury."
I guess when someone's job doesn't take much effort it's unreasonable to expect he'd understand the limitations of physical pain.
Been going through boxscores (a fun way to numb yourself after a sweep by the Blue Jays!) looking for pre-1918 11-run outings. 1916 and 1917 are easy now since retrosheet has all the boxes. Before that, you gotta just look for 11+ run games and then head to the newspapers hoping you find a box. I finally found one. September 3, 1913, Yanks-Sox at Fenway. Fred "Spitball" Anderson goes the distance before being pinch-hit for in the bottom of the 9th, giving up 11 runs in an 11-4 loss. Anderson, a dentist who served in the Army in World War I, killed himself with a 12-gauge shotgun blast to the heart at age 71 in 1957 after an extended illness.
Neat stuff.
Per the Globe, the Sox are 13-23 in the games that Beckett/Lester have pitched. That's not gonna get it done.
So, 10 games below .500 with our top two. And 10 games above .500 with the rest.
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