The Red Sox made their return today to a pair of things not so welcome– last place and .500 as they reentered last with a 48-48 record after today’s loss. The Blue Jays pounced on starter Jon Lester early and often, beginning on the very first pitch of the game when Brett Lawrie hammered an inside fastball well over the green monster to begin a rough time of things. That first inning was a good indication of what was to come, as the Jays scored five runs aided by RBI doubles by Edwin Encarnacion and Rajai Davis, a J.P. Arencibia groundout, and a Jeff Mathis RBI bunt.
Blue Jays starter Henderson Alvarez must have been pretty thrilled to come out of the gates with a 5-0 lead, but quickly swallowed his pride as the Red Sox took three in the first on a bomb to right for Adrian Gonzalez. This cut it to a 5-3 deficit for the Red Sox, by no means impossible, but the Blue Jays didn’t stop in the second inning. A three-run homer by J.P. Arencibia and a solo blast by Rajai Davis (back-to-back jacks) would give the Jays four more runs, just as we all though the inning would be over.
The Red Sox didn’t strike right back after this second inning, it stayed at 9-3 until the bottom of the fourth when the Red Sox scored a run on a Mike Aviles sac fly. That run for the Red Sox must have inspired the Blue Jays– as they capitalized on a two-run homer by Travis Snider in that inning. That home run officially closed the book on Jon Lester– who allowed eleven runs in four innings today and raised his ERA from 4.80 to 5.46. Junichi Tazawa came in here and was pretty much the hero of this game, as he would fire three scoreless innings over the course of the game.
Anyway, the Red Sox got a home run of their own in the bottom of the fifth– the first of the season for Jacoby Ellsbury, a shot over the wall in center. The Red Sox clawed back into the game a bit more in the sixth on an RBI double by Mike Aviles and an RBI single by Nick Punto— pushing it to 11-7 Blue Jays. However, the game would be lost for good in the eighth, as the Blue Jays scored four runs to make it 15-7 in a horrible game for the Red Sox, concluding a miserable weekend in Boston.