The left coast hasn’t been very kind to the Boston Red Sox as they lost once again, this time to the Oakland A’s 8-2 in front of 21,331 at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.
Jon Lester (0-2, 9.00) got the start for the Red Sox (2-5) and had trouble with his location as he left a lot of pitches up in the zone. He went 6 innings, allowing 6 runs on 10 hits with 5 strikeouts. Javier Lopez was charged with a run in 2/3 of an inning while Takashi Saito went 1 1/3 innings, allowing a run on 2 hits and a walk while striking out 3.
Dallas Braden toed the rubber for the A’s (3-4) and used his nasty changeup to his advantage. He scattered 6 hits in 6 innings of work while allowing 2 runs. He walked one and struck out 3. Three Oakland relievers shut down the Red Sox in the final 3 innings as they didn’t allow a hit and struck out 3.
Once again, Kevin Youkilis was the man on offense for the Red Sox as he led the way with 2 hits, including a home run and a RBI. David Ortiz had the other RBI on his only hit of the night. Dustin Pedroia, J.D. Drew and Jason Bay had the other hits.
After a rough weekend, Matt Holliday led the way for the A’s with 3 hits and 2 RBI. Jason Giambi was 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs and Orlando Cabrera and Kurt Suzuki also had 2 hits with Cabrera adding an RBI. Jack Cust and former Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra both added home runs for the A’s as well. New London’s Rajai Davis had a tough night as he was 0-for-4 with 3 strikeouts.
Tough loss for the Red Sox as they really can’t get anything going offensively. They only had back-to-back hits once in this game and you need to do that more often to give yourself a chance to win. Plus the starting pitching that was supposed to be among baseball’s best, really hasn’t been there other than Beckett’s opening day start.
Terry Francona will now look to the WBC MVP Daisuke Matsuzaka to turn things around for the Sox. He will be opposed by Dana Eveland at 10:05 PM on NESN.
