The Red Sox failed to complete the sweep against the Blue Jays Sunday afternoon, falling 5-0 as Jon Lester faltered late.
This game began as an impressive pitchers' duel against unimpressive offenses. The Red Sox had some early chances, with Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury both reaching in the first before the attack died out on a strikeout and pop-up from Cody Ross and James Loney.
Lester, meanwhile, would not allow a baserunner until a leadoff groundball double from Omar Vizquel in the third. He would escape that frame through more weak contact--his bread-and-butter in the early frames
The Sox would put up another threat in the fourth with a pair of singles, but Morrow managed to work his way out of that one too, facing the bottom of the lineup. The Jays made a rally of their own in the bottom of the fifth thanks to a walk and an error to lead off the inning, but Lester turned to the strikeout to put an end to that threat, and then to get through an impressive sixth inning.
The problems for Lester would come just one out from the end of his day. After recording two quick outs in the seventh, Lester gave up a ground ball single up the middle to Yan Gomes. It was an innocent start, but Gomes stole second, and then scored on a single from Omar Vizquel to center to make it 1-0. The very next pitch was a fastball that ran in to Adeiny Hechavarria, and he got all of it, jolting a two-run shot to left, making it 3-0.
The Jays would tack on another pair of runs in the fifth off the still-struggling Daniel Bard, but that was just extra. With the Sox never managing to get on the board, the extra runs just proved to turn a Blue Jays win into a small-scale blowout.
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