Rangers Fire On All Cylinders In Rout Of Red Sox (4-7)

Lester was shellacked

Perhaps the most ironic and strange part of this rout was that the Red Sox actually took the lead. After Mike Aviles' leadoff single in the first inning, Dustin Pedroia slammed a homer over the monster and that was pretty much it for the Red Sox' glory in this game. After a one-out double by Nelson Cruz in the second inning, Mike Napoli quickly tied the game by crushing a homer to left. They'd score two more in the inning with a bases loaded single for Elvis Andrus and Josh Hamilton's short fly ball to left which Cody Ross botched and allowed a run to score and make it 4-2 Rangers. The Rangers continued to make productive outs and manufacture runs in the third inning with an RBI groundout, sacrifice fly, and an RBI single by Josh Hamilton to make it 7-2. Before that third inning was even through, the Rangers had gotten to Jon Lester enough to convince Bobby Valentine to take him out after a miserable day. Scott Atchison was actually fairly impressive, with two shutout innings before Michael Young got to him for a homer. His final line was a fairly impressive 4 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 3 K.

Dustin Pedroia hit a two-run homer

One might actually believe that the Red Sox pitching was settling down and this game might not be so bad. Matt Albers threw a scoreless seventh inning to keep the score at 8-2 and not an excessive rout. However, that was before Mark Melancon came into the game. The Rangers put two on base to begin the inning, and they were quickly taken off the basepaths when Josh Hamilton went yard and Adrian Beltre accompanied him to make it a 12-2 ballgame. Nelson Cruz would hit a two-run shot and the Rangers would score a pair more in the inning to make it 16-2. Adrian Gonzalez hit his second home run of the season on a shot to right in the bottom half but the Rangers would more than make that up in the ninth when they scored two off Vicente Padilla. This was not a good game.

Bright Spots:
Scott Atchison- 4 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 3 K
Matt Albers- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R
Dustin Pedroia- 1-3, 2 RBIs, 1 HR
Adrian Gonzalez- 2-4, 1 HR
Ryan Sweeney- 3-4, 2 2B

Dull Spots:
Jon Lester- 2 IP, 8 H, 7 R, 4 BB, 2 K
Mark Melancon- 0 IP, 4 H, 6 R, 2 BB
Justin Thomas- 1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 1 K
Vicente Padilla- 1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 K
Kevin Youkilis- 0-4, 4 K, 2 LOB
Jarrod Saltalamacchia- 0-4, 2 LOB

Player of the Game:
Scott Atchison- Atchison did a great job of holding this game together and giving some of us hope by allowing just a run in four strong innings of relief.