Saturday Red Sox Delight – 6/2

Daniel Nava #66 of the Boston Red Sox slides safely at home past J.P. Arencibia #9 of the Toronto Blue Jays during MLB action at the Rogers Centre June 1, 2012 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Mom, you’re going to need to make up another bed in the basement because we have company.

After beating the Toronto Blue Jays 7-2 last night, the Boston Red Sox are now tied with the Blue Jays in 4th place in the AL East with both teams sitting at 27-25. They are just three games out of first, two games out of second and 1.5 games out of third.

With the offense pounding out 15 hits last night, you would have thought the offense was the story of the game. It was only half of it.

The other half was the outstanding effort by Clay Buchholz on the Rogers Centre mound.

While he did give up two solo home runs on changeups up in the zone, his stuff was nasty. His fastball consistently sat at 94-95 MPH and his changeup, other than those two home runs was outstanding.

To me, he got stronger as the game went on. He had trouble establishing his curveball early on but he found it later on. He used that curve to make two of the Blue Jays best hitters, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, look silly as they watched two of them go for strike three in the 6th inning.

And oh by the way, he struck out Colby Rasmus looking to finish off that 6th inning.

All told, the outing by Buchholz resulted in seven strikeouts to go with two walks. The quality start was good enough to raise his record to 5-2 and lower his ERA from 7.19 to 6.58.

Daniel Nava isn’t going to take the job of Carl Crawford whenever he returns. But what Nava is doing is opening up some eyes with his play.

He had four hits last night, including three doubles to raise his average up to .314. But what stands out to me is Nava’s OBP of .444.

Folks, he’s getting on-base almost 50% of the time, he’s at the plate. And with that happening, good things usually happen. You could also say that he’s been part of the resurgence by the Red Sox.

Adrian Gonzalez had three hits on the night as well with two RBIs. David Ortiz and Ryan Sweeney added two hits. The only member of the starting nine without a hit was Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

A win today gets the Red Sox out of the basement which would be a welcome sight here in Red Sox Nation.

Click on the read more button below to see today’s lineups, batter/pitcher matchups and links from the day if you’re on the home page.

Felix Doubront (L), Kyle Drabek (R)

After winning last night 7-2, the Boston Red Sox look to seal the series in the second game of a three-game set with the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada this afternoon.

First pitch is scheduled for 1:07 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on NESN in the Red Sox television market. If you live in the Blue Jays television market, you can catch the game on SportsNet or TVA Sports (French language broadcast). And if you live outside of the Red Sox and Blue Jays television markets, you are in luck as MLB Network will have coverage of the game as well. If you can’t catch the television broadcast, you can always listen to it on the Red Sox radio network.

Felix Doubront will toe the Rogers Centre mound for the second time this season in his 11th start. In his previous 10 starts, Doubront is 5-2 with a 3.86 ERA. His only career start against the Blue Jays came earlier this season when he took a no decision after allowing two runs in five innings of work. He’s made six career appearances (one start) against the Jays and is 1-0 with a 3.48 ERA. Three of those appearances (one start) have come at Rogers Centre where he is 1-0 with a 5.14 ERA.

Kyle Drabek makes his 11th start of 2012 as he looks to keep the Jays out of the basement. In his previous 10 starts, Drabek is 4-5 with a 4.55 ERA. He picked up his first win of the season back on April 10th when he allowed one run in 5.1 innings of work to beat the Red Sox. He’s made three career starts against the Red Sox and is 1-1 with an 8.16 ERA.

Here are today’s lineups:

27-25		27-25
1. Daniel Nava	LF	1. Kelly Johnson	2B
2. Mike Aviles	SS	2. Yunel Escobar	SS
3. Adrian Gonzalez	RF	3. Jose Bautista	RF
4. David Ortiz	DH	4. Edwin Encarnacion	1B
5. Jarrod Saltalamacchia	C	5. Colby Rasmus	CF
6. Kevin Youkilis	1B	6. Brett Lawrie	3B
7. Ryan Sweeney	CF	7. Rajai Davis	LF
8. Will Middlebrooks	3B	8. David Cooper	DH
9. Nick Punto	2B	9. Jeff Mathis	C
Felix Doubront	SP	Kyle Drabek	SP