If it weren’t for one bad inning for Josh Beckett, the Boston Red Sox may have had a chance to win. Although it still would have been hard as Mark Buehrle was having a good afternoon on the mound as well for the Chicago White Sox.
The White Sox scored three runs off of Beckett in the third inning on their way to a 5-1 win over the Red Sox in front of 22,511 at U.S. Cellular Field on Monday afternoon.
The loss for the Red Sox drops them to 79-58 and they fall 8.5 games behind the New York Yankees, who beat the Tampa Bay Rays, for first place in the AL East. The Red Sox lead the Texas Rangers by 2.5 games in the wild card as the Rangers game against the Cleveland Indians was rained out on Monday night. The Rays are seven games behind the Red Sox and lost Carlos Peña for the season. The Yankees and Rays are currently playing Game 2 of their doubleheader.
Well this time around Beckett was much better sans the third inning. The good thing is he didn’t give up any home runs. The bad part is that he had a difficult time controlling his breaking ball. His fastball command was a 1000 times better than in his previous four starts. He went seven innings, allowing the three runs on six hits and two walks with four strikeouts.
Hideki Okajima continues to struggle out of the Red Sox bullpen. The Japanese lefty allowed two runs on Carlos Quentin’s home run in the 8th inning.
Buehrle allowed a first inning run on a Kevin Youkilis single but that was it for the afternoon. The Red Sox had their chances against him but were unable to capitalize. Buehrle went 7+ innings, giving up one run on eight hits and two walks with four strikeouts.
Tony Pena struck out two in the 8th and Matt Thornton finished it off in the 9th adding a strikeout.
Jacoby Ellsbury led the Red Sox offense with two hits and added his 60th stolen base of the season. Dustin Pedroia chipped in with a double and Youk had the only RBI. The only members of the starting nine without a hit were Rocco Baldelli and Jason Varitek.
The Red Sox head back to Beantown to kickoff an eight-game, ten-day homestand with the Baltimore Orioles. Clay Buchholz gets the ball for the Red Sox while David Hernandez will go for the Orioles.
