Coming off a very disappointing game, the Red Sox showed their true potential today with a commanding 14-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians. The Red Sox were facing Corey Kluber (0-0, 6.10), who was pitching for his job today (and probably lost it), and they absolutely devoured the rookie starting very early on. A one out double for Carl Crawford in the first inning jumpstarted a big rally for the team. Crawford would score on a double by Dustin Pedroia and Pedroia scored on a two-run homer to right for Adrian Gonzalez— his 13th of the year to make it 3-0.
The Indians actually picked up a run in the bottom of the first on a Carlos Santana sacrifice fly, but from that point on, it was all Red Sox. With two men on base in the top of the second, Carl Crawford extended the lead a bit, driving them both in with a two-run double to make it 5-1. It took them a couple of innings, but they picked up their sixth run of the game on an RBI single by Kelly Shoppach in the fourth. At this point, Kluber was taken out of the ballgame and fellow starter Josh Tomlin joined in the fun.
The Red Sox welcomed Tomlin with a reasonably large offensive outburst in the fifth inning– putting two men on and no outs to start things off. From that point on, the Red Sox offense just went bananas. Each of those men scored on singles by Cody Ross and Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Ross scored on a sacrifice fly by Danny Valencia and a Kelly Shoppach strikeout seemed to squander their chances as they now had runners at first and second with two outs and a 9-1 lead. That was when the real damage of the inning came in almost consecutive fashion as a two-run double by Jacoby Ellsbury, an RBI double for Carl Crawford, and two-run double for Adrian Gonzalez made it 14-1.
The Red Sox just kind of coasted along after that as Jon Lester continued to cruise against Cleveland’s weak offense. Lester wound up going 6 innings, allowing three hits, two walks, and a run while striking out 12– lowering his ERA to 5.20 and earning his first win in a while. After that; Junichi Tazawa, Clayton Mortensen, and Alfredo Aceves each fired scoreless innings as the Red Sox went on to win 14-1.