With Josh Beckett on the DL, we needed Jon Lester to be an ace more than ever. Lester has pitched well his last few times out, but has gotten little to no run support. Lester needed to have a quality outing and he needed the bats to back him up. The game ended up being closer than we’d like, but that just what happened.
Lester looked great for most of the outing. He just had the one trouble outing in the 7th. Lester pitched 6 scoreless innings and headed into the 7th with a 4-0 lead. Lester started the inning giving up a leadoff double to Baker and then Baker went to 3rd on a groundout. Lester ended up walking Castilla to put runners on 1st and 3rd. Valbuena hit a sure thing HR and suddenly the game went from Sox up 4-0 to Sox up 4-3. Lester got DeJesus to strike out and Bobby V came out to get him. Lester still had himself a quality start and was able to pitch deep into the 7th inning. Lester’s line for the night was 102 pitches, 6.2 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 8 Ks. Scott Atchison came out in relief and got the out to end the 7th inning. Padilla and Aceves both pitched scoreless innings to put the game away. Aceves locked up his 16th save of the season.
The offense at least gave the pitcher a little bit of support. Jarrod Saltalamacchia had himself quite a game. Salty went 2 for 3 with a walk. His first hit was a double in the 1st inning that would have scored Papi if it was for Papi’s baserunning blunder. In the 4th, Salty hit a 2 run HR to put the Sox up 2-0. In the 6th, the Sox scored their 3rd run with a Middlebrooks single to score Papi. Sox 3-0. The Sox scored their final run in the 7th with a Podsednik single to score Mike Aviles.
Sox win! Water is dirty!
Red Sox 4 Cubs 3 BOXSCORE
WP: Lester (4-4) LP: Samardzija (5-5) SV: Aceves (16)
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