Three aces down, Red Sox are on a roll

It took a full month for the Boston Red Sox to get on track in 2011 but thankfully baseball seasons are way too long anyways.

For the third straight night they faced an ace last night in Dan Haren. Like Felix Hernandez and Jered Weaver before him, he was decent but he couldn't completely quiet Boston's offense in a 7-3 Red Sox (14-15) win at Fenway Park.

Jon Lester (4-1) showed that his early season struggles seem to be a thing of the past. The ace in Boston's rotation went seven innings, allowing six hits, one earned run with a walk and 11 strikeouts.

Haren (4-2) suffered his second loss to the Red Sox in less than two weeks. He went seven innings, allowing nine hits, four earned runs with eight strikeouts.

Boston's lineup produced double digit hits (12) for the second straight game. Adrian Gonzalez (2 RBIs), David Ortiz, Jed Lowrie, Marco Scutaro (2 RBIs) and Carl Crawford all had two hits in the win.

Mark Trumbo gave the Angels (16-14) their only lead of the game, with a solo homer in the top of the first.

Gonzalez knocked in Jacoby Ellsbury with an RBI single in the sixth and Lowrie put Boston ahead 2-1 with an RBI single later in the frame that scored Gonzalez.

Haren started to falter in the seventh as Jarrod Saltalamacchia hit an RBI double that drove in Crawford.

There's a reason the Red Sox are 15-1 (6-0 this season) in their last 16 games against the Angels since they find every conceivable way to beat them.

Gonzalez's solo homer in the eighth knocked Haren out of the game. Ortiz and Scutaro (two-run) broke it open with homers in the inning as Boston went ahead 7-1.

Jonathan Papelbon came on in a non-save situation and did what every closer has to do in such an event: shit the bed. Erick Aybar had an RBI double and Trumbo had a sacrifice fly.

On the plus side, Daniel Bard had a scoreless eighth on nine pitches.

It's raining now and supposed to rain tonight so we'll see if Josh Beckett vs. Ervin Santana takes place as scheduled.