Many people hate a good ol’ fashioned pitchers duel. Me, I’m not one of those people.
Brian Bannister and Jon Lester exchanged zeroes for 7 1/2 innings but the Boston Red Sox finally broke through for a run in the 8th to beat the Kansas City Royals 1-0 in front of 38,116 at Fenway Park.
Bannister had been dealing all night long but things took a turn for the worse for him in the 8th.
Mark Kotsay led off the inning with a single and was pinch-run for by Aaron Bates. Nick Green then attempted to bunt him over but failed on the first two tries. Terry Francona left the bunt on with two strikes and Green executed it perfectly to get Bates into scoring position.
Bannister struck out J.D. Drew for the second out and then uncorked a wild pitch to move Bates over to third with Dustin Pedroia at the plate. It wouldn’t matter though as Pedroia hit a wall ball double to bring in Bates and give the Red Sox a 1-0 lead.
Jonathan Papelbon came on for the save in the 9th and much to the surprise of all of Red Sox Nation, set the heart of the Royals order down 1-2-3 for his 23rd save of the season.
With the Yankees on the west coast right now, the Red Sox (52-34) hold a .5 game lead over them in the AL East. It’ll either be a 1-game lead in the morning or they’ll be tied. The Royals fall to 37-49.
There’s so many adjectives out there to describe Lester’s performance tonight on the mound. I’m going with dominating as I thought this was his best performance of the season. He used all of his pitches and used them all well as he used all parts of the strike zone. He gave up just 4 hits and 2 walks while striking out 8 in 8 innings to pick up his 8th win of the season. He also lowered his ERA to 3.87.
Lester has not allowed an earned run in 3 starts against the Royals now at Fenway.
Bannister ended up being the tough luck loser. He was just as good as Lester was tonight as his off-speed stuff kept the Sox hitters off balance. He went 7 2/3 innings, allowing the 1 run on just 3 hits and 4 walks while striking out 7.
Pedroia had the biggest hit of the night with the RBI double while Jacoby Ellsbury and Kotsay had the others.
Speaking of Ellsbury, he was thrown out of the game in the 5th inning after he was called out at home plate.
Kotsay had tried to go second on pitch in the dirt by Bannister and Ellsbury broke for home. Ellsbury slide in and was called out and threw his helmet in disgust and got tossed. Replay showed that Ellsbury was indeed safe.
Definitely a pleasure to watch Lester and Bannister duel tonight. Hopefully the Red Sox bats can wake up tomorrow night and give John Smoltz some run support. It’ll also help if Smoltz pitches a little better than he did his last time out at the Fens. He’ll be opposed by Gil Meche.
