The Red Sox had their five game winning streak snapped at the hands of the Orioles, who scored three times on sacrifice flies en route to a 4-1 win.
In many ways, it was just one of those nights for the Red Sox. For Clay Buchholz, his biggest problem to start the season has been his difficulty with walks, strikeouts, and homers. Tonight, though, he struck out five men, walked just one unintentionally, and allowed not a single ball to leave the park. Instead, he just ran into an Orioles lineup that mustered just enough off of him seemingly every time.
The only run that didn't score on a sacrifice fly came when Matt Wieters hit a roller down the first base line which bounced off the bag and back to Buchholz on the mound. Combine that with a number of balls well outside the zone that the Orioles golfed into the outfield for hits, and in many ways there just wasn't anything Clay could do.
Even one of the sacrifice flies could have been kept off the board had Buchholz managed to cover first and convert a double play in the fifth. But sure enough, his foot came off the bag at the last second, leaving the out needed to bring home a run.
It's harder to excuse the Red Sox' lineup for their transgressions, but much credit has to be given to Zach Britton, who looked every bit the top prospect he has been made out to be, keeping the Red Sox off balance for the first few innings, and escaping danger in both the fifth and sixth innings to keep the Sox to just the one run--also scored by way of a sacrifice fly from Kevin Youkilis.
The Sox fall to 10-12 with the loss. Josh Beckett will face Jeremy Guthrie in the second game of the series starting Wednesday at 7:05 p.m.