Boston Red Sox come up just short to open series

The Boston Red Sox opened a four game set with the Oakland Athletics on Thurday, and they lost by a couple of feet.

In a game that was full of fantastic plays, A.J. Pierzynski ended the game on a long fly ball caught by Coco Crisp as he jumped against the wall to secure the 4-2 victory for the A’s.

Xander Bogaerts went 0-4 at the plate, but he is showing no signs of trouble defensively at third base as he made two excellent bare-handed plays that easily could have gone for base hits.

The A’s Stephen Vogt, who is primarily a catcher, got the start in right field and made a fantastic sliding grab in foul territory in the first inning to retire Bogaerts. Vogt also came through with a fielder’s choice RBI on a ground out, and later singled home another run.

John Jaso drove in a run on an RBI single, but the loudest hit of the night came off the bat of Yoenis Cespedes as he hit his 13th home run of the season in the bottom of the third.

All the Red Sox scoring came off a home run that nearly wasn’t, when Pedroia hit a ball over the left field wall that narrowly avoided Cespedes’ glove as he reached over the wall.

Jake Peavy looked strong despite picking up the loss dropping his record to 1-5, but he gave up five hits and four runs, just three earned, over 6.1 innings. He did strike out four but walked three and ran up a high pitch count of 117 pitches before being removed in the seventh inning.

Scott Kazmir went seven strong innings for the A’s to pick up his 9th win of the season, and Dan Otero earned his first career save in his 78th big league appearance.