Red Sox starter Jon Lester held the Oakland bats at bay in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, winning 9-3. The southpaw threw six innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on three hits. He struck out four A’s batters and walked two.
Dustin Pedroia got the scoring started in the bottom of the first, singling in Marco Scutaro. Oakland’s Brandon Allen knotted the score at 1-1 with a home run to left field just half an inning later. Boston captain Jason Varitek followed with a two-run bomb of his own in the second, and Jacoby Ellsbury added an RBI two-bagger.
The Athletics picked up a second run on a sacrifice fly by former Red Sox outfielder Coco Crisp. Then Boston followed with the fifth straight half inning of run-scoring baseball with a two-run double from David Ortiz and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Carl Crawford. Scutaro and Varitek added RBI singles in the fourth and fifth to put the Sox up 9-2. Cliff Pennington singled in Kurt Suzuki in the top of the ninth to wrap up the scoring.
Oakland starter Guillermo Moscoso allowed eight runs (seven earned) on nine hits in four innings of work. With the loss he falls to 4-8.
