After losing five in a row to start the series, the Boston have taken the first two contests of the three game set, as they won Saturday night, 7-2. The Red Sox offense busted thro
ugh on the evening as David Ortiz hit a three-run homer in the opening inning to the start the scoring, and speedy Jacoby Ellsbury raised the score to 4-0 in the second inning with an RBI-double.
Baltimore was able to cut their deficit in half in the fourth inning as they got RBI singles from Matt Wieters and Cesar Izturis; however, after that frame, they could not put another rally together to push runs across home plate.
Boston scored again in the bottom of the fourth as Jacoby Ellsbury once again drove in a run with a double, and then the nail in the coffin was put in the game as newly acquired Adam LaRoche hit his first home run — a two-run shot — as a member of the Red Sox off Baltimore reliever Mark Hendrickson.
Jon Lester improved his record to a dominant 9-0 over the Orioles as he went 7 1/3 innings and allowed two runs on eight hits, plus struck out nine. Meanwhile, Jeremy Guthrie took the loss — his ninth on the season against seven wins — as he gave up five runs on eight hits in 6 2/3 innings of work.
I guess there’s not else to say, but the Orioles are 1-7 after the All-Star break and are a sad 1-16 on the road versus the American League East. Baltimore is now 41-55 on the season, and one has to think if they could have won at least half the games on road versus their divisional rivals, they could be at least .500, or so.
Crazy.
