From Perfection To Dejection...Red Sox Lose...VMart To Be Activated

Jon Lester was perfect through five plus innings. His offerings were nastily unhittable. Jeremy Hermida was stationed in left field and he had this to say...

"I've never seen anybody that dominant. Nobody was getting a good swing against him. I said to John Lackey on the bench that I had never seen anything like that and he agreed."

Of the first 16 batters who came to the plate for Seattle, 10 went down on strikes. When Jon is on, he's the best pitcher in all of MLB. Here's Boston manager Terry Francona...

"That was as good a stuff as we've seen all season," Terry Francona said.

As I was watching, my mouth was open in amazement. But it all came apart with two outs in the sixth inning and the Good Guys up by a score of 1-0. Eric Patterson, who was playing center, was under a fly ball but it popped out of his glove. Man on base and Michael Saunders at the plate. BOOM, a two run tater and the Mariners were off to the races. It went downhill from there with Seattle scoring multiple runs in the eighth off Lester, who was still in there. My goodness Tito, take him out after seven and make up that one run difference. Instead, after eight it was 5-1 and that was the final score. Boston never scored any more runs but a 2-1 deficit is much more manageable than a four run one. The Red Sox can't afford to lose many more of these types of games. ANY TYPE OF GAMES. My goodness!

I have some good news to share. You might have heard it already but so what. It bears repeating. Victor Martinez will return to the Red Sox lineup soon, very soon. We need his bat in there most of all. He said this yesterday after catching Clay Buchholz' side session...

“I feel good. It was a good test, catching Buchholz’s session. The only thing I can say is I’m pretty close. So we’ll see how it goes today. It’s not fun at all when you’re used to playing every day and then watching your teammates playing so hard on the field. Just watching — it’s not fun at all.’’

VMart, it'll be great to see you back at and behind the plate. VMart is just one of the very missed Boston players out with injuries. Buchholz and Beckett are back...more to come. We'll see if Theo Epstein does something to bolster the bullpen before the July 31st trading deadline. The Detroit Tigers are said to be interested in Mike Lowell to fill their 4-6 week void at third base. We need bullpen help. My fingers are crossed.

Today in Seattle, Matsuzaka and Fister will face off at 4:10pm EDT in game four of this four game series. GO SOX. For all the latest details about last night's frustrating loss, simply click on the title of this post. Have a great Sunday and as always and forever, BE WELL. Thanks for popping in.