Final, Red Sox 5-1: Seven straight wins, the last four on the road against division rivals, and the Red Sox are positively rolling.
Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia both have three hits to help back Clay Buchholz, who was fantastic in his first start in a week.
Buchholz allowed a run in seven innings and Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon get the final six outs in a great team effort.
The club will attempt to keep this train moving Saturday afternoon with John Lackey on the mound. It was in Rogers Centre where Lackey was knocked around last month before his memorable postgame commentary, which preceded a stint on the disabled list. He will oppose Brandon Morrow in a 1:07 p.m. affair.
Mid 9th, Red Sox 5-1: A four-run lead feels pretty comfortable, but an opportunity to add to that goes by the board when Jed Lowrie strikes out with the bases loaded.
Then again, a four-run lead wasn’t enough for Jonathan Papelbon less than a week ago. You can always use a few more.
Papelbon will pitch in what is now a non-save situation.
9:53 p.m.: That pursuit of insurance has been fruitful. Adrian Gonzalez just lined an RBI double to left, chasing Shawn Camp and giving the Sox a 5-1 lead.
End 8th, Red Sox 4-1: An intriguing matchup between Daniel Bard and Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista goes the way of Bard, and it was rather impressive.
With a man on and no outs, Bard threw four straight fastballs 97 and higher before breaking off an 82 mph slider that Bautista could only stare at for strike three.
Adam Lind was also a strikeout victim and Juan Rivera grounded to first. We head to the ninth looking for insurance.
Mid 8th, Red Sox 4-1: Forgot to mention last inning that Jed Lowrie has committed two errors in this game and now has 10 this year.
Only three shortstops in the game had as many as 11 errors entering the night, and Lowrie has not been in there every game this year.
Anyway, the Sox go quietly in the top of the eighth. Daniel Bard will pitch the bottom half.
End 7th, Red Sox 4-1: The Blue Jays had another threat against Clay Buchholz in the seventh, but again he wiggles out of it.
With runners on the corners and one out, Buchholz gets Edwin Encarnacion swinging and Mike McCoy on a pop to Adrian Gonzalez in foul territory.
Buchholz looked at his fingers after throwing a ball to Aaron Hill early in the inning. It looked as if he was monitoring the blister situation. He proceeded to throw the next five pitches out of the zone and also almost threw away a pickoff attempt before licking the fingers clean. Seems as if there might be something small going on there, but he made some great pitches to escape.
Mid 7th, Red Sox 4-1: Get up and stretch, and when you do, see if you can find something interesting to say about this game. It’s rather lackluster, which will suit Clay Buchholz and the Red Sox just fine.
After Boston strands two runners in the seventh, Buchholz heads out there with a healthy pitch count of 82.
9:04 p.m.: Dustin Pedroia singles with one out in the seventh, and John Farrell will call on a new pitcher. Luis Perez, a lefty, will face Adrian Gonzalez.
End 6th, Red Sox 4-1: Two men reach against Clay Buchholz in the sixth and Juan Rivera cranks one to left, but Carl Crawford is able to track it down near the track for the final out.
Please forgive some shorter posts tonight. Publishing program giving me all sorts of fits, as is Twitter. Also, I took a 2:40 train back from NY and there was a snoring champion a row away, so there has been almost no sleep since Wednesday night in a loud Bronx hotel.
Coffee is being made.
Mid 6th, Red Sox 4-1: Jo-Jo Reyes may wind up with the loss and will not get a quality start, but he hasn’t been bad. Very few balls have been hit that hard. They’ve just been timely — Red Sox are 3-for-8 with runners in scoring position.
Reyes retired the side in order in the sixth. He froze Jarrod Saltalamacchia with a well-placed fastball to finish it off.
End 5th, Red Sox 4-1: This is looking extremely easy for Clay Buchholz. His pitch count is at just 65 after another perfect inning.
The Blue Jays have two hits and have not drawn a walk.
Mid 5th, Red Sox 4-1: Not a ton of balls hit hard in the fifth inning, but the Red Sox use three hits and a walk to score two and extend the lead.
Adrian Gonzalez and Kevin Youkilis get the RBIs. Great way to answer Toronto’s first run of the game.
Gonzalez has now driven in a run in a career-high seven straight games.
End 4th, Red Sox 2-1: The runs in this game have scored on an infield hit, a double-play grounder and a fly to center. Not exactly the stuff that will have this game leading the nightly highlight shows.
Clay Buchholz did a very nice job of limiting the Blue Jays to the sac fly in the fourth. He gave up a single and a double to start the inning and had two men in scoring position with no outs.
Facing Adam Lind, a man who had knocked him around in the past, and with first base open, Buchholz went after Lind and whiffed him with a pretty cutter. He also fanned J.P. Arencibia with a 95 mph heater, stranding Jose Bautista at third.
Buchholz has displayed some very good velocity tonight.
Mid 4th, Red Sox 2-0: Carl Crawford is tied for fourth in the American League with four triples after hit into the gap worms its way to the wall with two outs in the fourth.
Mike Cameron then serves as the buzzkill, grounding out on the first pitch he sees to finish the frame.
For the best coverage of the Stanley Cup, follow Doug Flynn all night. Puck drops in a matter of moments.
End 3rd, Red Sox 2-0: Jed Lowrie has looked shaky at shortstop since early March. We were watching him closely in Fort Myers since the great shortstop debate was alive and well, and he just seemed unsure of himself at times
His ninth error of the season gives the Blue Jays their first base runner of the game in the third. A stolen base gets that runner into scoring position, but Clay Buchholz records a strikeout of Mike McCoy to end it.
7:55 p.m.: Everyone wanted the Red Sox and Yankees to rumble over hit batters and all that stuff. Never happened, but the Indians just strolled into New York and already there has been a bench-clearing incident.
Curtis Granderson homered and Fausto Carmona then hit Mark Teixeira with a pitch. Think the Yanks’ frustration was bubbling up a bit and it all came out right there.
Mid 3rd, Red Sox 2-0: Jo-Jo Reyes dug himself an immediate hole by giving up a single to Jarrod Saltalamacchia and walking Jacoby Ellsbury to begin the third.
Both men scored. Salty came in when Dustin Pedroia grounded an infield hit to shortstop Mike McCoy. Ellsbury scored on a 4-6-3 double play.
Not the most jump-out-of-your-seat plays to get on the board, but it all counts the same.
End 2nd, 0-0: We are still awaiting our first hit of the game. The Blue Jays are still waiting for their first base runner after another easy inning for Clay Buchholz.
He has needed just 24 pitches so far.
Hockey?
Mid 2nd, 0-0: Realistically, Mike Cameron never should’ve batted in the second inning.
The Red Sox were given not one but two extra chances to mount a threat after Carl Crawford’s foul pop down the line fell just out of the reach of Corey Patteson, and his grounder to second was booted by Aaron Hill.
That gave Cameron a chance with two on and two out (Kevin Youkilis walked to lead off the inning). But the Red Sox right fielder stared at a fastball that caught the inside corner to end the frame.
End 1st, 0-0: The early lack of fireworks seems to go hand in hand with the often small and silent crowd in Rogers Centre. The place can just feel empty at times.
Clay Buchholz gets one out on the ground and two through the air. It’s a good place for him to make his return after the mini-layoff. Buchholz has allowed seven earned runs in 37 1/3 innings here, good for a 1.69 ERA.
Adam Lind, who leads off the second for Toronto, is one of the few Blue Jays with some pretty good success against Buchholz. Lind is 9-for-26 (.346) with a pair of home runs in their meetings.
Mid 1st, 0-0: Mike McCoy was a late replacement at shortstop, and is immediately involved in a big way.
McCoy threw out both Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia and then went into shallow left to catch a pop fly by Adrian Gonzalez. That was a pretty easy eight-pitch frame for Jo-Jo Reyes.
7:07 p.m.: The first pitch from Jo-Jo Reyes to Jacoby Ellsbury is a strike. We are under way.
5:46 p.m.: We mentioned this last night, but it bears repeating after learning that the Red Sox landed in Toronto with the sun up.
The last time the club went through something like this (rain delay on getaway day, early-morning arrival in another city), it seemed spent. That precipitated the three-game sweep at the hands of the Chicago White Sox, the last losses Boston has had before this current six-game run.
There was a day off after that series with Chicago, and following the third game of the series about six or seven Red Sox players talked about how they never really recovered from that morning flight in and a relative lack of sleep and that they needed that day off in a big way. Since they got it, they’ve rolled to six straight victories.
The Sox have been rather streaky so far. What has made them successful is that the winning streaks are longer than the losing streaks, but there have been some legitimate skids in there. If that trend of winning five, losing three, winning six, losing two, winning five, losing four, etc. is going to continue, then this series in Toronto would be a logical one to see a swing back the other way.
This is not meant to be pessimistic after such a great series in New York. But Terry Francona says this all the time — success, or lack thereof, is often about when you catch teams on the schedule. The Jays may get a tired Boston team due for a loss at some point in the near future.
Then again, maybe not.
5:02 p.m.: So with the return of Jarrod Saltalamacchia, the Red Sox were able to say goodbye to Luis Exposito.
Exposito was optioned to Pawtucket while right-hander Michael Bowden was brought up for the third time this season.
That should allow the bullpen to be in pretty tip-top shape. Alfredo Aceves is now two days removed from his 3 2/3-inning outing, which means he may just need one more day to be available. With Bowden, the club now has six others to turn to, and all are relatively rested.
That’s rather important in the event the Clay Buchholz’s bad back and lack of rest from the early-morning arrival presents an issue.
3:47 p.m.: If you are wondering about some of the lineup decisions, it is simply because of the left-handed status of one Jo-Jo Reyes, who presents an intriguing story.
Reyes had gone 28 starts over nearly three years without a win before throwing a complete game victory against Cleveland on May 30.
So what does he do his next time out? He won, naturally. Twenty-eight straight starts without a win and then two in a row with one.
Of course, one of those winless starts came in Fenway Park on April 16, when Reyes was overmatched by the Red Sox. He gave up four runs on seven hits and five walks in just three innings that day. Amazingly, Boston never scored again after the lefty departed the game, holding on for a 4-1 win.
Jed Lowrie, one of the lefty killers on this team, hit leadoff that day. He singled and scored in the first and then hit a two-run bomb in the second, part of that crazy run he had in April.
Mike Cameron also had a single off Reyes in that game and is 3-for-8 with two home runs and five RBIs against him in his career.
Adrian Gonzalez, a no-brainer in the batting order, is 3-for-6 with four walks vs. Reyes.
3:27 p.m.: Dustin Pedroia’s bothersome knee and Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s stomach issues kept them out of action near the end of the Yankees series, but both are returning for the opener in Toronto.
Here is the Red Sox lineup in support of Clay Buchholz:
Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
Dustin Pedroia, 2B
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Kevin Youkilis, 3B
David Ortiz, DH
Jed Lowrie, SS
Carl Crawford, LF
Mike Cameron, RF
Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C
8:00 a.m.: The Red Sox will have plenty of momentum but very little rest when they begin a three-game series in Toronto on Friday night.
After a rain delay of well over three hours, the Sox finished a three-game sweep of the New York Yankees early Friday morning and then landed in Toronto around sunrise. Clay Buchholz, Friday’s starter, tried to fly ahead but his flight was cancelled and he was forced to endure the late arrival.
Buchholz will be pitching for the first time in a week. He was given two extra days of rest due to a sore back. The righty is 6-3 with a 2.73 ERA in his career against Toronto.
Boston hopes to have Dustin Pedroia back in the lineup. He missed Thursday’s finale in New York to have his right knee checked out back home. The exam found only a bruise on the kneecap and no structural damage.
Jo-Jo Reyes goes for the Blue Jays. He gave up four runs in just three innings at Fenway Park earlier this year.
First pitch for this one is set for 7:07 p.m.
