Boston finished its first series sweep of the season on Thursday night against old pal Terry Francona's Indians, 6-3 at Progressive Field. The Sox have won six in a row for the first time in nearly a year, since April 23-28 last season. They've been in first place or tied for first place since the season began.
CLEVELAND — Alex Anthopolous, general manager of the favorited Blue Jays, said at the end of spring training that the Red Sox should not be counted out of the American League East. Maybe that's all the Blue Jays GM could ever say publicly, but he focused on the pitching the Red Sox have, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz.
It's just 15 games, so maybe that's too soon to call the Red Sox a first-place team. But if you look at the standings, that's what they are — and they're not in that spot because of a good bounce here and there. Someone's going to throw a stinker up there at some point, but for the first five series of 2013, the Red Sox have been an encouraging bunch.
Boston finished its second series sweep of the season Thursday night, against old pal Terry Francona's Indians, 6-3, at Progressive Field.
"We're playing good baseball," said Dustin Pedroia, who had an RBI-single. "We got to continue. It's a good road trip, we go back home facing some tough pitching so we got to make sure we keep playing well."
The Sox have won six in a row for the first time in nearly a year, since April 23-28 last season. They've been in first place or tied for first place since the season began.
"Just a well played series all the way around," manager John Farrell said. "I thought we pitched very well, got through the four and five spots in the rotation. Offense got us enough support and room late in the game. I thought tonight Jon pitched as consistent as he’s been throughout this early part of the season."
Lester's become an automatic seven innings. That's three times in a row the Sox lefty's gone that long. He gave up both Indians runs, struck out five, walked one and allowed four hits on 115 pitches, 72 strikes. His curveball wasn't there tonight, yet he was nonetheless effective.
"Yeah, struggling with it a little bit," Lester said. "But for the most part, felt Salty did a great job keeping me under control, not overthrowing. Yeah. With the exception of that, felt pretty good."
Lester's 6-1 in 12 career starts against the Indians, with the Sox going 9-3 in those games.
Pitching back-to-back days in the warm weather, Koji Uehara bailed out Andrew Miller in the eighth inning, coming on to record one out. He let up a double to Carlos Santana that cut the lead to three, then struck out Nick Swisher with the tying runs both in scoring position.
Andrew Bailey got the save for a second straight day.
Boston's big inning was the seventh, when three runs came home to make it 6-2. Mike Napoli had an RBI-single in the inning and just barely scored from second on a hard pinch-hit single from Mike Carp later in the inning. Baserunning's been a plus for the team: Jacoby Ellsbury stole a base and Pedroia took two.
"It's fun to watch," Lester said. "Guys take the extra base. They're aggressive, but also under control. The at-bats guys are putting together just fouling off pitches and grinding them out, it's been fun. And then seeing our bullpen come in and doing what they've been doing lately. You can't put your finger on one thing. Everybody's doing what they need to do and we're playing good baseball right now."
Jarrod Saltalamacchia's fourth inning homer off Indians starter Zach McAllister, who went five innings, put the Sox up 2-0 in the fourth. A Dustin Pedroia single to right made it 3-0 an inning later.
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