Jon Lester continues to impress. He went seven innings tonight and threw one hundred and one pitches. He pretty much plowed through the Oriole's lineup for the first five innings. He never faced more than four batters in those innings (well, except for when Millar fouled a pitch off his knee--My own wonky knee was extremely empathetic watching the replay. So, there's nothing but good thoughts for limited damage coming from this corner of the interweb--and had to leave the game, so it doesn't really count) and scattered only a handful of hits (two singles and a double) and a walk during that time.
He did run into a piece of trouble in the sixth inning. He gave up a double to the first batter but then got the next two out on a bunt bid gone wrong and a ground out to short. To the fourth batter of the inning he gave up a double that brought in a run. To the fifth batter of the inning he gave up a double that brought in a run. The next batter got a single but the last batter fouled out to first to get him out of there. In total, he gave up two runs on seven hits. His work in the seventh inning was much improved over the sixth. He struck out the first batter (his third of the night), the second batter grounded out, and the third batter popped out to short.
Manny Del pitched the eighth inning and did an excellent job. He struck out the first two batters-one swinging and one looking. The next batter reached on an error charged to Lugo but the last batter flied out to left. No damage done.
Mike Timlin pitched the ninth inning. He had a 1-2-3 inning and did a very good job of it. He got the first batter to ground out, the second to strike out (with three pitches), and the third to pop out to second. It was definitely good to see.
The Sox scored their first run in the second inning. With one out, Youkilis hit a single to center and moved to second on a ground out by Coco. He then came around to score on a single by Lugo.
The score didn't change again until the fifth inning. Ellsbury started things off with a single to right. After Pedoria flied out, Drew doubled to center. With runners on second and third, the Orioles (unlike Joe Girardi) decided to walk Manny to load the bases. Mike Lowell was having none of it, though. He took the second pitch he saw and deposited it in the monster seats for his tenth home run of the year, his eighth career grand slam, and his second grand slam of the season.
By the seventh inning, the Orioles had gotten themselves back in the game-they were only down by three. Manny started off the inning with a walk. Lowell struck out swinging but Youkilis hit a two-run home run to put the Orioles back in a five-run deficit.
In the eighth inning, JD Drew must have realized that a) he hadn't yet hit a home run in this game, and b) both Youkils and Lowell had been sitting on nine home runs and if he didn't hit another one soon they would pull ahead of him in totals. So with two outs and Pedroia on first after drawing a walk, Drew hit his tenth home run of the year to keep pace with Youkilis and Lowell, and to put the game even further out of reach of the Orioles.
Lugo did make another error tonight (number 13 for the season) but he played really well. Offensively: Besides the RBI single, he also had a double in the fifth. Defensively: He made some really nice plays tonight. He was moving around like he new exactly what he was doing; he fielded seven ground balls and a pop up cleanly. Also, it may just have been the frequency with which he was accumulating them earlier in the season but it seems like it's been awhile since there was an E4 on the board.
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