Jon Lester was probably have the most important start of his season against the Yankees last night. The Sox were two games over 500 and this game seemed way more important than it actually probably was. In Lester’s last start he gave up 5 runs in the first inning, so Lester really needed to have a positive and quality start.
Lester was given an early lead by the Sox bats and he started out with 1-2-3 innings in the 1st and 2nd. In the 3rd inning, Lester gave up a solo HR to Chris Stewart. Sox 3-1. Lester seemed to have his most trouble in the 5th inning when he gave up a walk and then a HR to Jayson Nix. Sox 6-3. Lester gave up another walk and a single. It seemed like he might be falling apart. Jeter hit a sac grounder to score the Yanks 4th run of the night. Lester buckled down and got the 3rd out on a strikeout of Granderson. Sox 6-4. Phew. Lester came out to have a 1-2-3 6th inning and that was it for the night. Lester still had the “one bad inning” however he limited the damage. Lester did his job and left the mound in line for a win.
The Sox offense got after CC Sabathia early. Pedro Ciriaco continued to hit the Yankees well and got a single in the 1st. Pedey followed him with a single of his own and hit an RBI double to score their first run. Middlebrooks hit an RBI double himself to have the Sox up 3-0 in the 1st. In the 5th, Gonzo hit his 10th HR of the season to give the Sox a 6-1 lead. I know people have complained a good deal about how Gonzalez has been a disappointment, however since about mid June he’s been nothing but locked in.
After Lester was done for the night, Matt Albers took the mound for the 7th. Albers pitched himself a nice 1-2-3 inning. Albers has continued to show his value to the bullpen. In the 8th, Vicente Padilla took the mound and that is when trouble happened. Ibanez got the inning started with a single. Padilla got both Jeter and Granderson to strikeout. However, Granderson hit two foul balls that were “this close” to HRs before K’ing. Teixeira who has no love lost for Padilla came to the plate. Teixeira hit a game tying HR to centerfield and seemed to quite enjoy watching his ball go out. Bobby V saw enough with Padilla since he was playing with fire all inning long and finally got burned. Andrew Miller came out and got the final out to end the inning with 2 pitches. Can we all decide that Padilla should just not pitch to the Yankees anymore?
The Sox offense took to the top of the 9th and got right back to business with Yankees closer Soriano on the mound. Ellsbury walked and then did a lot of dancing over at first base. With Pedro Ciriaco at the plate, he hit a triple right over Granderson’s head. Granderson probably could have gotten to the ball, but he was playing in on the ball and seemed to get a bad jump on it. Watching it fly over Grandy’s head was a thing of beauty. Pedey hit a sac fly to score Ciriaco and the Sox had themselves a nice 2 run lead. Alfredo Aceves took the mound for the 9th and hoping for his 22nd save of the season. Aceves started out the inning arguing with the umpire when he called a pitch a ball when Aces thought it was a strike. Not now Aces, not now. Aceves came back to strikeout Swisher to start the inning. Aceves got a groundout and then a fly out to end the inning and get the save. Phew. We needed that.
The Red Sox win. The water was in fact very dirty.
Red Sox 8 Yankees 6 BOXSCORE
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