The Red Sox Are Finally Putting It All Together

I'm not sure what happened to the Detroit Tigers team that played the Red Sox in the opening series this season but Boston will happily continue to beat up on this current crappy version of the Tigers while they try to sort things out.

The Red Sox (26-24, 13-13 home) won their third straight against the Tigers (23-27, 12-15 away), 6-4 tonight at Fenway Park.

Jon Lester (5 quality starts in 11 outings) dug Boston a 3-0 hole but thanks to three home runs, Boston was able to rally and then close the door thanks to more fine work from one of the best bullpens in baseball.

This looked like a start from Lester's rookie year as he piled up pitches (120) but wasn't particularly effective. In 6.2 innings, he allowed four earned runs on 10 hits with seven strikeouts.

Detroit starter Drew Smyly was about as up and down as you'd expect from a rookie in his first outing at Fenway. In six innings of work, he allowed four earned runs on eight hits with four strikeouts.

The Tigers didn't exactly pound the ball as Lester worked around plenty of baserunners. Detroit scored in the first on a groundout then got two in the third on a sacrifice fly and groundout.

David Ortiz (12th of the season) and Will Middlebrooks (6th of the season) both had two-run homers in the fourth to give Boston a temporary 4-3 lead.

Miguel Cabrera (4 hits, 3 doubles) tied it with an RBI single in the seventh but the Red Sox pushed ahead thanks to Adrian Gonzalez's (2 hits) ground-rule RBI double in the seventh then Kevin Youkilis' (4th of the season) solo shot over the Monster in the eighth.

Matt Albers (1-0) got the win despite only recording one out (Delmon Young's ground out) but it was a big one since Detroit had the bases loaded with two outs in the seventh.

Andrew Miller pitched a scoreless eighth with two strikeouts for his sixth hold of the season then Alfredo Aceves proved yet again what a freak he is on the mound. Appearing in his fourth straight game (three save opportunities), he proceeded to get a 1-2-3 ninth (15 pitches/13 strikes) for his 13th save of the season.

I will be at Fenway tomorrow night (7:10 p.m., NESN) for what could be my only Red Sox game of the season, so it better be a good one! Haha, of course I'm stuck with Josh Beckett (4-4) against Max Scherzer (4-3). Pink hats and little kids be damned, you know I'll take every chance I can to voice my displeasure with the Texas Toughguy. Boston will be going for the rare four-game sweep.

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