Josh Beckett had 10 strikeouts for the first time since opening day and Dustin Pedroia kick-started the Boston Red Sox with a solo homer on their way to an 8-3 win over the Oakland A’s in front of 37,955 at Fenway Park on Monday night.
With the win, the Red Sox (58-40) stay 2.5 games behind the New York Yankees who beat the Tampa Bay Rays. The lowly A’s fall to 41-57.
Beckett’s stuff was nasty on the evening. He had good command of all of his pitches and moved the ball all over the plate. He went 7+ innings, allowing 3 runs on 8 hits and a walk with the 10 strikeouts. The win for Beckett was his 12th and is the most in the American League. It also ties him with Jason Marquis of the Rockies and Matt Cain of the Giants for the most in MLB.
The bullpen continued it’s nice post All-Star break run as well.
Daniel Bard worked an inning and allowed a hit while striking out two. Manny Delcarmen finished it off with a perfect inning.
Rookie Trevor Cahill struggled for the second straight time at Fenway Park. He gave up 6 runs on 10 hits and 2 walks while striking out 5. Santiago Casilla allowed a hit and a run with a strikeout in his inning of work while Edgar Gonzalez allowed 2 runs on 3 hits and 2 walks in 2 innings.
Pedroia ended up knocking in two on the night and had 2 hits. Jacoby Ellsbury had his 4th straight multi-hit effort with three hits and had an RBI. Adam LaRoche continues to impress the Fenway faithful as he had two hits and an RBI while J.D. Drew had two hits as well.
Jason Varitek had hit, 2 walks and a RBI as did Jason Bay. Jed Lowrie added a ground-rule double and 2 RBIs. All nine starters had at least a hit in the win.
This is what the Red Sox are supposed to do teams that are struggling and are at the bottom or near the bottom of their division.
Hopefully Clay Buchholz can follow the lead of his fellow Texan and give the Red Sox a quality outing tomorrow night. He’ll be opposed by Vin Mazzaro who has lost his last 7 starts.
