Do you remember about a month ago when Jon Lester was struggling? Well he’s doing a great job of making us forget about it (sorry for bringing it up).
Lester dominated the Minnesota Twins in a complete game effort to help the Boston Red Sox to a 6-2 win on Thursday night at Fenway Park to help sweep the two-game set.
It’s the third straight win for the Red Sox who improve to 22-20. The Al Central-leading Twins fall to 24-17.
Lester was simply magnificent on the mound in his complete game effort. He need just 103 pitches in shutting down of the top hitting teams in the American League. He mixed his pitches well and had great command of them all. He had 28-of-32 first pitch strikes and 13 of his outs came via the ground ball. Lester ended up allowing two runs (one earned) on six hits. He didn’t walk anyone and struck out nine Twins batters.
His best inning of the night may have come when he struck out Orlando Hudson, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau in the 7th inning.
Kevin Youkilis knocked in four of the six Red Sox runs, three of them coming via 3-run homer. Victor Martinez had a nice night at the plate as he had three doubles while Adrian Beltre added a solo home run, which was one of his two hits. Darnell McDonald had the other hit and may have set the tone against Francisco Liriano by working a nine pitch walk in the 1st inning.
Beltre’s home run came in the 2nd inning with one out. But the big blow to Liriano and the Twins came in the 3rd inning.
Liriano had gotten the first two outs of the inning but then walked Dustin Pedroia. A double down the line by VMart gave the Red Sox runners at second and third. Then Youk made Liriano pay when he left a ball up in the zone that Youk crushed 429 feet to center for the three-run homer.
It was more two-out magic for Youk in the 5th as his double not only knocked in VMart after the second of his three doubles but it also forced Twins skipper Ron Gardenhire to take Liriano out of the game. Beltre would add the final run of the game for the Red Sox when he came around to score on a passed ball by Mauer.
The Twins first run came in the 8th when Delmon Young brought in Michael Cuddyer on a sac fly. They would add an unearned run after a Pedroia error but it was all for naught as Lester was the man.
With Clay Buchholz going 8+ innings on Wednesday night and Lester’s complete game effort on Thursday night, the Red Sox bullpen will be fully rested for the upcoming three game series against the Philadelphia Phillies. First up will be John Lackey who will square off with Cole Hamels at 7:05 p.m. from Citizens Bank Park on Friday night.
