There's no getting around it — this was a pure beatdown. The Red Sox got after it at the plate from the first inning and swung it all night long, bashing the Cubs for 15 runs on 19 hits.
Expert baseball analysis: You win a lot more games than you lose doing that.
End 8th, Red Sox 15-5: The hits just kept coming for the Red Sox in the eighth, with a big one from Jacoby Ellsbury. The center fielder drove one off the Green Monster that brought home two more runs fro the Sox.
Adrian Gonzalez also picked up his fourth hit and subsequent fourth RBI with a line drive to center.
It was a rough inning for Jeff Samrdzija who wore the five runs. Right now, the former Notre Dame wide receiver probably wishes he was getting ready for the NFL lockout to end.
The 15 runs and 19 hits are both season highs for the Sox, who will turn things over to Franklin Morales to see if he can preserve a 10-run lead in his Boston debut.
Check that: it's Atchison back out for the ninth.
Bot 8th, Red Sox 10-5: Starlin Castro just made an error in the bottom of th eighth, and despite the hype, he's had a rough night. He's 0-for-4 at the plate, and he's been a bit shaky in the field, save for an impressive relay throw that gunned down the Adrian "Speedy" Gonzalez at the plate.
Darwin Barney, though, has been pretty impressive. He's got just one hit, but he's put some good swings on the ball.
Oh yeah, the Red Sox have continued the misery for the Cubs with some more runs in the eighth. The big hit came off of the bat of Carl Crawford, who singled through the right side to drive in two runs.
Mid 8th, Red Sox 10-5: And there it is, folks. A 1-2-3 inning for Red Sox pitching. Whudda thunk that you could look up in the eighth inning, be up by five runs and just be finally getting your first 1-2-3 innings.
You have to applaud the job that Scott Atchison did for the Red Sox, though. He actually may not be done for the evening, but if he is, he did a good job of making sure the Sox kept their breathing room. If he's not done, I totally reserve the right to take that back.
End 7th, Red Sox 10-5: You kind of get the feeling that this game is approaching the, "Well, we'll get 'em tomorrow" approach as we're starting to see a little bit of a quicker pace to things.
That, or the pitching is getting better. Regardless, the Sox just went quietly in the seventh.
Atchison will pitch the eighth as well.
Mid 7th, Red Sox 10-5: After a hiccup to begin the inning in which he hit Marlon Byrd, Scott Atchison worked a nice little seventh inning.
Nothing but good news, too, right now for the Red Sox and their fans. Both the Yankees and Rays lost their interleague openers to the Mets and Marlins respectively. That means a win tonight moves the Red Sox to within 1/2 game of first place in the AL East. That, in turn, means that if things hold up like they are now, and then the Sox win and Rays lose again on Saturday, the Red Sox will be in first place.
Remember when they were 0-6?
Mid 6th, Red Sox 10-5: And for the first time since 1918, we have a 1-2-3 inning in a Red Sox-Cubs game at Fenway Park. That's a total assumption, but you've got to think it will stand up.
Anyway, the Sox went quietly in the sixth, and they take a 10-5 lead into the seventh.
As expected, Scott Atchison will work the seventh in relief of Jon Lester.
Mid 6th, Red Sox 10-5: Jon Lester was close. Oh so close.
The lefty looked poised for his first 1-2-3 inning of the game, but Jeff Baker hit a ground ball up the middle with two outs for his fourth base hit of the evening. Aramis Ramirez followed with a bullet single for his third hit, but Lester was able to strand both.
He gave up 12 hits which is a new career-high for the lefty.
Scott Atchison is warming in the pen, and Lester just threw his 104th pitch, so that should be it for him.
End 5th, Red Sox 10-5: Luckily for the Cubs, they finally got out of that inning, thanks in large part to a double play off the bat of Adrian Gonzalez. Still, that DP brought in a run, giving the Sox double digits in runs for the first time this year.
Luckly for Cubs fans, there are a lot of bars near Fenway.
Bottom 5th, Red Sox 9-5: If you just close your eyes and listen to the bottom of the fifth, you'd know it was going well for the Sox. They are just hitting lasers right now, good contact on everything they make contact with.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia home run, Jacoby Ellsbury double and a Dustin Pedroia single means the end of the night for Scott Mayne.
Mid 5th, Red Sox 8-5: This game just continues to putter along, with Jon Lester's battle continuing. He still hasn't had a 1-2-3 inning, and he surrenders a run in the fifth, although this one wasn't totally his fault.
With two outs and runners at first and second, Alfonso Soriano's weak ground ball was fielded by Jed Lowrie in the hole. His throw started to pull Adrian Gonzalez off the bag, but Gonzalez tried to hold it and then ended up not making the catch. A run scored on the play, and the runners moved up.
Both of those runs came around when Reed Johnson followed with a wall-ball RBI double to left.
Lester is laboring, and he's given up 10 hits through just five innings. Not pretty.
End 4th, Red Sox 8-2: If you're at Fenway Park this weekend, give a Cubs fan a hug. This is getting bad.
Kevin Youkils welcomed Mayne with an absolute blast over the Monster seats to make it 8-2.
Then, a broken-bat one-hopper to Starlin Castro at shortstop turned into an error on Carlos Pena when he dropped the ball at first.
Jed Lowrie smoked a single off the wall and Mike Cameron walked, but Carl Crawford grounded out with the bases loaded to end the inning.
Bottom 4th, Red Sox 6-2: Ladies and gentlemen, Adrian Gonzalez.
The Sox first baseman has three hits tonight that have led to three RBIs, and he's hitting the ball all over the yard. This time, he hit a hanging Doug Davis curveball over Darwin Barney at second base to score Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Dustin Pedroia.
Mike Quade puts Davis out of his misery, opting for lefty Scott Mayne out of the bullpen.
Mid 4th, Red Sox 4-2: On one side of things, Jon Lester sure is battling right now. For that, he's gotten through four innings and only given up a couple of runs. However, you get the feeling that things could be a lot worse.
Again, the lefty doesn't seem all too comfortable out there, and he's struggling to put it all together. You have to hope he finds it for a few innings, because with Alfredo Aceves and Tim Wakefield starting this weekend, you'd like to save your bullpen.
End 3rd, Red Sox 4-2: And just like that, the Red Sox have the lead again.
Kevin Youkilis' sac fly scored Dustin Pedroia, thanks to the latter's beautiful slide into home plate. Jed Lowrie eventually knocked in David Ortiz, who doubled.
The Sox would have gotten another run at some point in that inning — if Adrian Gonzalez wasn't really, really slow. He was gunned down by about a mile trying to score on the Ortiz double.
Jon Lester, who starts the fourth with 48 pitches, needs his best inning so far right now to gain some momentum.
Mid 3rd, 2-2: The struggles continue for Jon Lester in the third inning.
Lester gave up a couple of weak hits, but did allow Aramis Ramirez to smoke a RBI double off of the Monster to get the Cubs on the board. Then, Carlos Pena's groundout produced another run for Chicago.
Lester just looks like he's swimming upstream tonight or something. He looks incredibly frustrated by that, as well. You love the fire and all of that, but you have to wonder if there would be anything to be gained by harnessing that a little bit.
End 2nd, Red Sox 2-0: Doug Davis settled in nicely, at least for an inning, with a solid second inning of work.
He opened the frame with a strikeout of Carl Crawford in which he hammered the left fielder with pitches on the outer half. In what we've seen of Crawford, he really seems to struggle with pitches that are away, at least when he's not looking for them.
That sounds obvious, sure, but it's perplexing when sometimes he'll drive the ball through the box and to the left in some at-bats, and others, like that one, he goes down waving at an 84 mph fastball.
Mid 2nd, Red Sox 2-0: Jon Lester still hasn't settled in, but perhaps the double play he induced to save the second inning will help. He hit the leadoff man and gave up a broken-bat single, but he was able to work out of trouble by getting Reed Johnson to ground into a double play.
Hopefully Lester can settle in, as he likely won't have to worry about run support if Doug Davis doesn't drastically improve after his first inning.
End 1st 2-0: All right, so Davis got an out. He got three of them, and therefore, the inning is over. That said, unimpressive doesn't even begin to describe his first inning.
The lefty didn't fool anyone, and the Red Sox seem locked in on anything coming out of his hands.
They probably should have scored more than a couple of runs there. Whether or not Adrian Gonzalez could have scored on a David Ortiz flyout to center is debatable. Then, Jed Lowrie hit a ball on the nose that went for a lineout to left. Mike Cameron also smoked a grounout to third.
Gotta think the Red Sox will put up a few more runs before this one is said and done.
Bot 1st 2-0: At this rate, any out that Doug Davis is able to get would be a surprise. Davis is struggling to get anyone out, as the Red Sox have jumped all over him for a pair of runs, and they are threatening for more.
Mid 1st, 0-0: Jon Lester got two quick outs, but then surrendered a couple of singles. He featured some softer stuff in the first, including some changeups, before working out of a mini-jam by getting Carlos Pena to hit a 400-foot flyout.
Anyway, we got a look at the throwbacks the Sox and Cubs will wear on Saturday night (video coming soon to NESN.com). Write me down as "not a fan." Your guys' thoughts?
7:12 p.m.: And the first pitch between the Red Sox and Cubs at Fenway in almost 100 years is … a strike. Things are under way at Fenway Park between the Cubs and Red Sox.
7:08 p.m.: Dennis Eckersley threw out the first pitch. Bill Buckner is in the Cubs' radio both. We can only hope that Damon Berryhill is in the house dressed as a celebrity guest fill-in for Wally tonight or something. That would be awesome.
6:49 p.m.: Some more random musings before things get going at Fenway.
Red Sox fans will get a look at a very good (and young) middle infield in 21-year-old shortstop Starlin Castro and 25-year-old second baseman Darwin Barney.
Castro burst onto the scene last summer, and he's already made the cover of Sports Illustrated. It was well-desereved, too, as the youngster continues to impress. He enters the weekend hitting .331, which is good for fifth in the NL. He's in the leadoff spot on Friday night, which could be bad news for the Sox, as he's hit .426 this year when in the leadoff position.
Barney, who is a senior citizen compared to Castro, has been just as good in what is his rookie season. He's hitting .322 and was the NL Rookie of the Month in April. He leads NL rookies in batting average, hits and runs, and he's hit safely in 28 of 35 games this season.
So maybe, just maybe, hope is on the horizon for Cubs fans.
6:25 p.m.: After bucking the trend and dominating the month of April, Jon Lester has hit something of a bump in the road as of late. He's given up nine runs in his last two starts, but he was still able to pick up a win and a no decision in those.
Sure, Sox fans would have liked to see him pitch better last Sunday against the Yankees, but he was able to battle. Sometimes, it's those type of starts that mean the most. Lester struggled early on against New York, but he battled and got through six innings after settling down. In the end, he was rewarded with another win.
He's got a bunch of those as of late, as he's won his last five decisions.
5:25 p.m.: Meteorologist Tony Lee is off tonight, so I'm filling in for him both in terms of manning this live blog, as well as prognosticating the forecast.
Get this — the sun is out. As pretty much anyone on the Eastern seaboard can attest, the weather has been dreary to say the least for the past week or two.
Have we turned the corner? Eh, maybe not. Showers are expected in Boston for Friday night (and Saturday night), but it doesn't seem like it will be too big of a factor. Even if stronger rain was in the forecast, one would think they'd have to do all they could to get these games in. Otherwise, you're looking at roughly 93 years or so before you can make them up.
5:20 p.m.: Wouldn't you know it, we have a Cubs lineup for Friday night.
As mentioned in today's Eastern Bank Leading Off piece, the Cubs haven't had too many looks against Jon Lester in the past. One man who has, and has had success as well, is Haverhill native Carlos Pena.
Pena hit Lester pretty well when the first baseman was in Tampa Bay, slugging five home runs and driving in 12 runs in 40 career at-bats against Lester. I'm not a mathematician, but I'm pretty sure that's a home run every eight at-bats, and where I'm from, that's pretty darn good.
Anyway, here's how the Cubs will start on Friday night opposite Lester.
Starlin Castro, SS
Dawin Barney, 2B
Jeff Baker, 3B
Aramis Ramirez, DH
Carlos Pena, 1B
Marlon Byrd, CF
Alfonso Soriano, LF
Reed Johnson, RF
Koyie Hill, C
4:20 p.m.: Good afternoon, Red Sox fans. It will be a special occasion on Friday night. In case you hadn't heard, the Chicago Cubs are in town for the first time since World War I was getting wrapped up.
The history is cool, but this is a series the Red Sox should be able to handle. This is the lineup they'll throw out in the series' first game to try and do that.
Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
Dustin Pedroia, 2B
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Kevin Youkilis, 3B
David Ortiz, DH
Jed Lowrie, SS
Mike Cameron, RF
Carl Crawford, LF
Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C
8 a.m.: The Chicago Cubs come into Fenway Park on Friday night with one of the worst records in baseball. Chances are, though, you won't be able to tell on Friday night as the Cubs and Red Sox meet in a matchup of two of baseball's oldest franchises.
Chicago will be making its first appearance at Fenway since the 1918 World Series, a series that the Red Sox won as part of a dominant stretch in the early part of the 20th century.
As much as we'll hear about the history of the two clubs, as well as the '18 Fall Classic, it's a good chance for the Red Sox to continue surging. They've won six in a row after Carl Crawford delivered a walk-off hit in the ninth to give the Sox a win over the Tigers on Thursday night.
Luckily for the Red Sox they've got Jon Lester on the mound, as he'll look to help Boston stay hot. Lester will be opposed by Chicago's Doug Davis.
First pitch is set for 7:10 p.m.
