This was a major roller-coaster game for the Red Sox as the Royals took a three run lead, the Red Sox came back and grabbed a huge lead before losing it and blowing in extras. After all, normally when one takes a 9-3 lead into the seventh inning, it’s pretty comfortable. Not in the Red Sox’ cases though, as Andrew Miller came in and promptly allowed the Royals to load the bases with one out. Alex Gordon singled to drive in one and Miller was pulled in favor of Mark Melancon, who allowed two of his inherited runners to score before Craig Breslow entered the game, allowing a two-run triple to Mike Moustakas that tied things up at nine apiece.
Lets’ back up a bit, that was just one of two huge Royals innings– the first big one came in the first inning. They started off with four consecutive hits to start the game (Jarrod Dyson, Alcides Escobar, Alex Gordon, Billy Butler) and scored three runs– two coming on a double by Gordon and one on Butler’s single. However, Aaron Cook settled down tremendously after that and actually got a bit of run support starting in the second.
That was when Mauro Gomez came in and in his first at bat since the trade of former first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, hit his first major league home run. Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Ryan Lavarnway followed him up with a couple of singles before they both scored on a three-run homer by Mike Aviles which just barely scaled the wall in left.
The Red Sox just kept moving right along in the third inning, loading the bases with no outs to start things off. They scored two on a major throwing error by Royals’ starter Jeremy Guthrie and another on a Saltalamacchia sac fly to give them a 7-3 lead. They tacked on a few more in the fifth on RBI singles by Cody Ross and Mauro Gomez and took a 9-3 lead.
Aaron Cook left the game after six, allowing three earned runs on seven hits and a walk, seemingly in great position to take home his fourth win of the season. However, the bullpen struck and allowed the Royals to somehow tie the game before the solid part of the bullpen came in (Andrew Bailey, Vicente Padilla, Junichi Tazawa) and held the Royals for a few innings until they finally broke through in the twelfth– scoring the go ahead run on a soft opposite field single by Tony Abreu. The Red Sox were held in check for the bottom of the twelfth by Greg Holland and that was that.