Jon Lester has historically been lights out against the Orioles, but today would not follow suit. Lester continued to struggle, give up a HR to the red hot Davis and get over 100 pitched by the 5th inning. The slide of Lester continues and it has to be a pretty big cause for concern for the Red Sox at this point. The Sox bats battled back, but it was too little too late.
Lester was able to keep the O's off the scoreboard in the first two innings, but he had to throw a lot of pitches to do it. In the 3rd Lester wouldn't be so lucky as he gave up an RBI double to Jones and then a 2 run HR to Davis to have the Orioles leading 3-0. All of the RBIs would be with 2 outs which has been a season long trend of Lester's. Lester gave up 2 more runs in the 5th and that would be it for him for the night. Lester gave up an RBI single to Machado and then an RBI double to Davis. Sox 0-5. The funny thing is that Davis has never had a hit off of Lester before today's game and tonight had 2 hits and 3 RBIs. Lester's pitching line for the night was 106 pitches, 5 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 0 BB and 8 Ks. It was not the version of Lester we were hoping to see.
Pedro Beato who was just called up from Pawtucket pitched a scoreless 1-2-3 inning in the 6th. In the top of the 7th the Sox tried to get back into the game when Will Middlebrooks hit a 3 run HR and knocked Orioles Gonzalez out of the game. Sox 3-5. That was Middlebrooks first HR in the major leagues since May 19th. Unfortunately, Junichi Tazawa gave one of those runs right back in the bottom of the 7th when he had an uncharacteristically bad outing. Tazawa gave up an RBI single to Hardy and when he gave up another double and had runners at 2nd and 3rd with one out, he was out of the game and Andrew Miller was in. Miller got out of the inning with no more damage when he got both Davis and Wieters to strike out to end the inning. Miller pitched a scoreless 8th inning as well, but the Sox bats were unable to get anything else going against the O's and fell in the final game of the series.
The Sox lost their first series in June and head home for a much needed off day on Monday before the double header against the Rays.
Red Sox 3 Orioles 6 BOXSCORE
WP: Gonzalez (5-2) LP: Lester (6-4) SV: Johnson (25)
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