Jacoby Ellsbury hit his first Major League homerun for the Boston Red Sox and Jon Lester earned his third victory of the season beating the Baltimore Orioles 3-2.
Hideki Okajima earned his 25th hold of the season and Jonathan Papelbon closed the door in the ninth for his 31st save of the season.
Mike Lowell improved his hitting streak to 15 games in the first inning with an RBI single to deep left field scoring Dustin Pedroia who has been performing well of late out of the lead off spot for the Red Sox in recent days.
Lester (3-0) pitched for 6 innings, allowing six hits, two runs, four walks, one strike out, and gave up one homerun to Ramon Hernadez in the seventh inning.
Ellsbury connected for his first Major League homerun off of Orioles’ starter Daniel Cabrera in the fourth inning giving Boston an early 2-0 lead. He also added a diving catch while racing back into the infield to aid the Red Sox in the win.
In addition to playing well, Ellsbury also helped out the scoreboard staff replacing the inning number in the Houston vs. Chicago Cubs game after teammate Brandon Moss made a running catch into the Green Monster scoreboard.
Lowell got his second RBI of the day notching a sacrifice fly to left scoring Pedroia again giving Boston a 3-0 lead.
Cabrera (9-14) suffered the loss pitching for 6 innings, on five hits, three runs, four walks, and seven strikeouts.
Baltimore started to mount a small comeback in the sixth and seventh innings as Melvin Mora singled to left driving home Miguel Tejada and Hernadez homered off of Lester in the seventh bringing it to a one run ball game.
Okajima had some trouble in the eighth allowing a lead off double to Nick Markakis but managed to get out of the jam getting Tejada to ground out to second and struck out Kevin Millar and Aubrey Huff swinging stranding the tying run in Markakis at third base.
Papelbon pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for the Red Sox and helped Boston push their division lead over the New York Yankees to 6 games after the Yankees lost to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 8-2 on the back of a Carlos Pena three-run homerun.
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