Jon Lester struck out 11 over seven dominant innings Tuesday night, and Adrian Gonzalez hit his first Fenway Park home run as the Red Sox pounded the Angels, 7-3.
The victory marked the third straight for the Sox against one of the American League's elite right-handers. The Sox emerged victorious against Dan Haren (4-2) after having won games featuring Felix Hernandez of the Mariners on Sunday and Jered Weaver of the Angels on Monday.
Haren and the Angels carried a 1-0 lead into the sixth on the strength of a Mike Trumbo solo homer in the second inning, but the Sox rallied against Haren. Jacoby Ellsbury extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a double, then scored on a two-out single to left by Gonzalez. Gonzalez then came around to score on a double by David Ortiz and an RBI single to right by Jed Lowrie that gave Boston a lead it wouldn't relinquish.
The Sox added on a single run in the seventh on Jarrod Saltalamacchia's RBI double before blowing the game open in the eighth when Gonzalez hit his second homer of the year and first since the second game of the season, ending a 96 at-bat stretch without a homer. That ended Haren's night, but not the Sox' offensive output.
Ortiz greeted reliever Hasanori Takahashi with a solo homer to right, marking the first time this year that the Sox have hit back-to-back homers. The team added on when Marco Scutaro slammed a two-run homer to left-center.
That was more than enough to make a winner of Lester (4-1), who gave the Angels nothing after Trumbo's solo shot in the second. The southpaw logged seven economical innings, needing just 93 pitches to reach double digits in strikeouts for the 15th time in his career. His ERA now stands at 2.33.
For more from the game, click here for Closing Time [1]. For complete Red Sox coverage, visit weei.com/redsox [2].
Links:
[1] http://fullcount.weei.com
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[3] http://www.weei.com/category/boston/red-sox