Lester Starts To Figure It Out, Months Too Late In The 2012 Red Sox Season

For the first time since June 5-22 (when he had four in a row), Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester strung together back-to-back quality starts.

His solid outing this afternoon helped Boston (59-62, 30-28 away) beat New York (71-49, 38-24 home) 4-1 at Yankee Stadium. They have split the first two games of the series so tomorrow night's finale will decade who takes it.

Lester (7-10) lasted seven innings, allowing one earned run on five hits with four strikeouts and two walks. It's amazing what happens when he executes, the Red Sox look like a completely different team. Now if only Josh Beckett wasn't one of the most useless athletes in professional sports, then they'd get somewhere.

Yankees killer Pedro Ciriaco went 4 for 4 with a double, run and stolen base. My favorite part of his great game is that he saw seven total pitches in four at bats. Why wait around? Somewhere Nomar Garciaparra nods his approval. Ciriaco is 14 for 28 lifetime vs. New York, the highest career average ever against the Yankees (minimum 25 plate appearances).

Adrian Gonzalez (2 hits, walk) hit a two-run homer (his 14th of the season) in the first inning against David Phelps (3-4) for an immediate 2-0 lead.

Curtis Granderson (double) homered (32nd of the season) for the second game in a row, this time a solo shot in the fourth which cut it to 2-1.

Nick Punto's RBI double in the fifth scored Ciriaco for a 3-1 Red Sox lead.

Phelps settled down and went 6.2 innings, allowing three earned runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts and no walks.

Boston tacked on an insurance run (which they ended up not needing) in the ninth as Scott Podsednik scored on Cody Eppley's wild pitch.

Andrew Bailey got the first out in the eighth then the Yale batterymates (Craig Breslow to Ryan Lavarnway) induced a double play by Robinson Cano to end the eighth inning.

Alfredo Aceves had a scoreless ninth for his 25th save of the season, he allowed one hit but also struck out a batter.

Nick Swisher was 3 for 4 in the loss.

Beckett (5-10) opposes Hiroki Kuroda (11-8) tomorrow night (8:00 p.m., ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball). Boston is 4-7 against New York so far this season but they can win their second straight series in the Bronx (2 out of 3) by coming away with a victory tomorrow.

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