Jon Lester And JD Drew Sweepingly Good As Red Sox Sweep Jays 8-1
After a little shakiness in the first inning, Boston Red Sox lefthander Jon Lester settled down and pitched an eight inning gem. Boston completed the three game sweep of the at-home Toronto Blue Jays by a score of 8-1. Lester gave up a first inning run and only three hits, walking two and whiffing five. From the third inning on, he was as dominant as one can get. The Red Sox offense was powered by rightfielder JD Drew's four hits, including two taters. He had three RBIs and was, of course, on base every time he came up to the plate. If only he could stay hot for, oh, a little more than a month and a half. Wouldn't it be nice? The Red Sox manager had this to say about the Jays' mistakes and the way his club took advantage of them...
“They made some mistakes and we took advantage of it,’’ manager Terry Francona said. “And that’s what we need to do. We had some timely hitting, we had some balance, we played with a lot of energy. This has been a tough place for us up here, and we played pretty crisp baseball.’’
All in all, it was a fun game to watch. With the Yankees looming large on the horizon starting tonight, it was an important victory from a vitally important cog of the Boston pitching rotation. Let me give you Dustin Pedroia's words...
“We’re swinging the bats well,’’ Dustin Pedroia said. “We’ve just got to keep it going. Lot of good at-bats. We’re headed home right now and hopefully we can get on a little run here. We’re excited. They (the Yankees) beat up on us pretty good at their place, so we’re going to come out and hopefully play a lot better than we did at their place."
The pinstripers have beaten us four times in a row, all in the Bronx. It's time to give them a taste of "Fenway medicine." Here are the pitching matchups for the three game weekend series...
Friday 8/21/2009 7:10 PM EDT NESN...Penny (7-7) vs. Pettitte (9-6)
Saturday 8/22/2009 4:10 PM EDT Fox...Tazawa (1-2) vs. Burnett (10-6)
Sunday 8/23/2009 8:05 PM EDT ESPN...Beckett (14-4) vs. Sabathia (14-7)
How much better can it get, especially the marquee Sunday night ESPN battle? The Red Sox need to sweep da bums...time is running out in this month of August. The weather here in southern New England, including Boston, will have jungle-like humidity and heat tonight, gradually decreasing over the weekend. Hurricane Bill will pass well to the east of Cape Cod and Martha's vineyard, so not to worry. Let's worry (just a little) about the Yankess. I get the chills just looking at Sunday night's nationally televised matchup. WOW!
Click on this post's title for more Sox news from the Boston Herald and as always, BE WELL. Have a great weekend, leave a comment or two and thanks for stopping by. Nadia says hello. See ya...soon.
posted by Peter N @ 5:54 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
It really disappoints me that the yanks have tinkered with their rotation to throw their 3 best pitchers at us while our management is gonna depend on 2 of our starters to pitch their guts out & hope our ace can out-duel their ace. That looks like they have a kick'em when their down and don't let up attitude while our team says whatever will be will be and maybe we can still make the playoffs if we play real hard.
As you know BFW thats the skanks for ya. The pitching matchups are a little scarry. Except for Sunday night. Beckett got his bad game out of the way and he should put on a show. The Sox hit Pettitte pretty good so if Penny can get it together and throw some off speed stuff to keep em guessing, we should get 2 of 3. Last night was easy to watch. It's nice to see some of those. You can just sit back and watch them play. I was impressed with Drew. Everytime I start doubting him he has a good game. Hoping for a sweep but at least 2 of 3. GO SOX!!!
BFW, we tinker all the time with the rotation to set up the best hurlers for certain series, but not this time. Penny, as you'll read in my Sat. AM post, is not long for this team. He was worse than terrible...his fastball was the only thing workin' for him and the pinstripers were guessing correctly and POUNDING it.
Phillip, the Yanks were smart to tinker. Usually, Tito is on top of that. The Yankees will only face one of our elite ptchers...Beckett. Lester and Buchholz (yes, we can put him in that category) will go after the pinstripers leave town. The AL East race might be virtually ovah by then. Tazawa has to give us a good 6. No ifs, no ands and no "F"ing buts.
Thanks guys! Enjoy the weekend. Pete
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