One night after walking off against the Minnesota Twins, the Red Sox found themselves on the other side of the fence, falling 6-7 to the Blue Jays in the tenth inning.
For the Red Sox, this was a debacle of a game, with only the occasional offensive burst to keep things close. From the very first inning, things were going wrong in unusual fashion. With two men on and nobody out in the first, Jacoby Ellsbury was picked off of second base, and the Sox went down without scoring. Then, in the bottom of the inning, the typically accurate Jon Lester loaded the bases on a single and two walks, then walked in a run. He would have escaped the inning with just two runs, too, had it not been for a dropped pop fly courtesy of Adrian Gonzalez.
Facing a 3-0 lead after one, the Red Sox got to work in the second. David Ortiz hit a leadoff double and was moved to third on a J.D. Drew single. Carl Crawford got the Sox on the board with an RBI single before Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Jacoby Ellsbury went down to end the threat.
After Jon Lester escaped a bases loaded situation in the third, David Ortiz brought the Sox within one run of the Jays with his fifth homer of the year. The Sox had a chance to tie things up, but a terrible attempt to score Carl Crawford on a sharply hit line drive single from Jacoby Ellsbury ended the threat. When Dustin Pedroia walked to start the next inning and was brought home on a 2-run shot, the Sox did take the lead, but left fans wondering just how many they could have scored in the fourth.
The lead did not last long, however, as Lester's struggles continued in the fourth when Jose Bautista led off the frame with a solo shot to left. The next inning started in similar fashion, with J.P. Arencibia doing the dirty work. Lester was pulled from the game after walking John McDonald and hitting Yunel Escobar with a pitch, his final line featuring an uncharacteristic five earned runs in just over five innings.
The roller coaster ride continued in the eighth thanks to Jed Lowrie, who doubled, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia, whose line drive to left field brought pinch runner Jose Iglesias home. Things quickly swung back in Toronto's favor, however, when David Cooper took a Daniel Bard fastball over the wall in right-center. Not one to break from the tradition of leadoff homers the game had established, however, Adrian Gonzalez responded by taking the second pitch of the ninth inning to the opposite field for his second bomb of the game.
Ultimately, though, all the small mistakes that had cost the Sox a run here and a run there came back to haunt them. Adrian Gonzalez' next big swing came in the tenth inning with two outs, and wasn't quite enough to get the job done. Pitching his second inning, Matt Albers allowed a one-out ground ball single to Rajai Davis, who was immediately off and running, stealing second despite a pitchout, and then third on the ineffective arm of Jason Varitek. With David Cooper at the plate, Albers needed to dodge any sort of contact, but could not avoid the sacrifice fly that sent Davis home and gave the Jays the win.