Terry Francona needed a long outing from his young starter Clay Buchholz on Tuesday night after last night’s marathon game. And with his rotation spot secure for the foreseeable future, Buchholz delivered for his skipper.
Buchholz went eight innings, allowing just a first inning run in the 2-1 win for the Red Sox over the Toronto Blue Jays in front of 14,776 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, ON.
The Red Sox move to within a game of .500 at 10-11 while the Blue Jays fall to 10-11.
The winning run for the Red Sox came in the top of the 8th inning.
Scott Downs took over for starter Shaun Marcum and struck out former Jay Marco Scutaro to start the inning. He then allowed back-to-back singles by Dustin Pedroia and Victor Martinez. A Kevin Youkilis fly out to right moved Pedroia to third and then J.D. Drew worked a walk.
With David Ortiz strolling to the plate, Francona called him back for Mike Lowell. Cito Gaston countered by bringing in his closer Kevin Gregg and the move didn’t work out too well for Gaston as Lowell worked a walk on four pitches. Gregg got out of the inning by getting Adrian Beltre to line back to him.
Due to the fact that Jonathan Papelbon, Daniel Bard and Hideki Okajima weren’t available, Ramon Ramirez was brought in to close out the game in the 9th. He did the job as he set the side down in order to pick up his first save of 2010.
After a rough 1st inning that saw Buchholz give up a run on two hits and a walk, he settled down and was outstanding. He mixed his pitches well and was throwing strikes. He gave up the one run on seven hits and two walks with four strikeouts.
Pedroia led the Red Sox with two hits while Jeremy Hermida had a hit and the other RBI.
The Red Sox will look for the sweep tomorrow night behind Jon Lester. He’ll be opposed the Jays young lefty Brett Cecil at 7:07 p.m.
