Peavy, Bogaerts Lead Red Sox In 7-2 Victory
By Conor Duffy
Last night was a big matchup for both the Red Sox and starting pitcher Jake Peavy. The Red Sox had a chance to seal their fourth consecutive series win and leave open the possibility of a sweep. Jake Peavy was facing the team that traded him almost exactly a month ago and had a chance to prove that team wrong by shutting them down in a win. Both the Red Sox and Peavy delivered.
The game seesawed back and forth in the early innings; the Red Sox took a 1-0 lead on a Mike Napoli single in the first but the White Sox tied it up with an RBI groundout by Alejandro De Aza. The Red Sox took a 2-1 lead on a Jonny Gomes double in the bottom of the third, but the White Sox tied it right back up in the top of the fourth with an RBI single by Avisail Garcia. Starting in the bottom of the third, however, both the Red Sox offense and Jake Peavy clicked and the Red Sox ran away with this one.
David Ross and Xander Bogaerts led off the bottom of the fourth with a pair of singles, and Jacoby Ellsbury kept the rally rolling with a ground-rule double to right. Shane Victorino was not able to bring across a run on a sharp groundout, but Dustin Pedroia‘s softer groundout would score a run as would David Ortiz‘s single and the Red Sox completed a three-run fourth and took a 5-2 lead. They would score two more runs on the night on an RBI single from Xander Bogaerts (who went 2-3 with a walk and an RBI, raising his slash line to .333/.375/.400 on the season) and a wild pitch with scored Gomes.
Meanwhile, benefiting from all this run support was Jake Peavy, who was lights out against his former team after the fourth inning. After allowing two runs on four hits and a walk in the first four innings, Peavy allowed just one more hit and no runs the rest of the way. His final line was 7 innings, 5 hits, 2 earned runs, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts as Peavy earned the win and lowered his season ERA to 3.91, with a 3.18 mark as a member of the Red Sox.
After Peavy was out of the game, the Red Sox got scoreless innings from Craig Breslow, lowering his ERA to 2.08, and Drake Britton, lowering his to 3.12 as he recovers from a little rough patch. On offense, the Red Sox just played a clean and easy game, recording 15 hits while scoring 7 runs en route to a quality win. The Red Sox will go for the sweep today as Felix Doubront (10-6, 3.74) takes on Andre Reinzo (1-0, 4.21).