Red Sox starting pitching has gone from great in one game to gruesome in the next two. No surprise, the Sox are two losses from beginning their winter vacation.
Jon Lester’s surprisingly poor and ineffective start at home in Game 3 of the ALCS led directly to a 9-1 Red Sox loss yesterday. The Rays lead the best-of-seven series, 2-1.
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Tim Wakefield will get a chance tonight to turn the tide, with the unpredictable flight of his knuckleball the perfect image for the out-of-nowhere performance of Lester, who allowed eight hits and five runs (four earned) in 5 innings. The left-hander’s Fenway Park dominance this season (11-1, 2.49 ERA) meant squat on a day when the Rays jumped all over his offerings.
Tampa Bay scored the game’s first run on a second-inning groundout and pushed the lead to 5-0 in the third on B.J. Upton’s three-run home run and an Evan Longoria solo shot.
Rays starter Matt Garza thoroughly outpitched Lester, stifling a Red Sox lineup that looked thinner than ever with Jacoby Ellsbury going 0-for-3 from the leadoff spot and slumping David Ortiz turning in an 0-for-4 out of the No. 3 hole. Ellsbury (0-for-14) and Ortiz (0-for-10) are hitless in the series.
Daisuke Matsuzaka threw a Game 1 gem (seven scoreless innings, four hits), but Game 2 starter Josh Beckett (4 innings, eight runs, nine hits) and Lester have let the team down big-time. To have Lester be the culprit counts as a shocking development to a team that was hoping to get on a roll at home.
The Rays pitched and hit a lot better than OK. As a result, they have four more chances to do that just two more times.
Relatively speaking, the Red Sox starting pitching has been really bad the last two games. There are not that many opportunities remaining to turn that around. Wakefield will try to do just that tonight when he starts Game 4.
