How ‘Sweep’ It Is

It’s Monday morning and what a great feeling it is to start the work week knowing the Boston Red Sox are fresh a third straight series sweep and in the midst of a highly offensive 9 game winning streak.  Their latest victims, the Toronto Blue Jays.

This past series saw the Red Sox in Canada to battle the always dangerous Blue Jays.  Aside from a tight 5-1 ball game on Friday night to open the set, the Red Sox never really let off the gas pedal over the weekend, as they outscored Toronto 35-6 and outhit them 46 to 12.

The starting pitching was just as good as the offense as all three starters, Clay Buchholz, John Lackey and Jon Lester picked up the wins.  Lester was particularly dominating, as the lefty threw 8 innings of 2 hit ball and was pegged for 1 earned run, a Jose Bautista solo shot. 

For Lackey, it was his second start since his return from the DL and while he got the win he has looked better than prior to his injury.  He did only give up 4 earned runs and struck out 8 en route to the win. He’s 4-5 on the season and his ERA is still north of 7.00 but perhaps the stint and rest on the DL was what the veteran needed to regain his confidence and form.

The offense accounted for 6 home runs in 3 games, with David Ortiz collecting a pair to push his team lead to 17 long balls.  Adrian Gonzalez, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis and captain Jason Varitek also got in on the long ball action. 

But it wasn’t really the long ball that was the key to the Red Sox offense.  Rather, it was more the timely hitting for base hits or run scoring doubles that led to many crooked numbers on the Rogers Centre scoreboard.  In all, the Sox pounded the Blue Jays pitching for 10 doubles in the three games.

The offense continues to roll and the pitching continues to shine and as a result it’s 9 wins in a row.  One problem the Red Sox have is the Yankees have won three in a row against Cleveland.  As a result the Red Sox lead in the AL East is only 2 on New York Yankees.  With a series in Tampa Bay on deck for Boston, they’ll need to keep rolling in order to keep their name on first place.

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