The Red Sox have their first three-game winning streak in over a month after taking the first game of their series against the Tigers 7-3 in Fenway.
The game did not start off terribly well for the Red Sox. On just the second pitch, Clay Buchholz would surrender a solo shot into the Monster seats. When Quintin Berry doubled off the wall behind him, it seemed like it could be a long night for the Sox and the one pitcher who had really been giving them great results of late.
Instead, Buchholz found his rhythm. He'd hold the Tigers to just the one run in the first, escape more serious damage by giving up just one in the third after allowing runners at the corners to start the frame and loading the bases with one down, and then go into lockdown mode.
The Tigers would manage few baserunners off of Buchholz from there, only scoring again in the seventh thanks to a dropped third strike from Kelly Shoppach. The Sox offense, however, had long since gotten to work. They would take the lead back immediately in the bottom of the first, pushing two across on a Jacoby Ellsbury walk, Carl Crawford triple, and Dustin Pedroia ground ball. While the Tigers' third-inning tally was good to tie the game, it would only last until the sixth when, with one man on, Dustin Pedroia found the Monster seats himself, putting the Sox ahead 4-2.
After the seventh inning run brought the Tigers within one, Shoppach made up for his defensive blunder by hitting a leadoff triple to the triangle in center field, scoring a fifth run to put the Sox right back ahead by two. The real death blow came in the eighth, however, with Will Middlebrooks cranking a two-run rocket over the Monster, leaving the Sox ahead by four headed to the ninth. Vicente Padilla did not have the cleanest of innings there, but with some good work from the defense behind him he was able to avoid any damage, leaving the Sox' lead fully intact at the end of the night.
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