The Red Sox put on an offensive show against Max Scherzer and the Tigers, scoring fourteen runs for the second straight game to down Detroit 14-1 in a game cut an inning short by rain.
It took Boston a few more outs to effectively put the game away Thursday than it did against the Indians, but once again the Sox took a large early lead and did not let go.
Max Scherzer took the mound for the Tigers beginning the day with a 2.98 ERA. After a leadoff walk to Jacoby Ellsbury, Scherzer seemed to settle down, escapign the first inning unharmed. Then the wheels fell off. A reasonably lucky hit from David Ortiz started a string of four hits off the Tigers' starter that gave the Sox a 2-0 lead.
It may have seemed as though Scherzer was gaining traction after he struck out Jason Varitek, but any notions of improvement were dispelled when Jacoby Ellsbury turned on a 2-2 pitch and sent it into the stands in right field to give the Sox their third, fourth, and fifth runs of the game.
While the Red Sox wouldn't score seven runs in the inning like they did against Cleveland, they may as well have. After allowing a single and a walk to start off the inning, Scherzer found himself chased from the game after Carl Crawford tripled before an out was recorded in the third. Crawford would finish with four hits in five at bats, including two triples.
Meanwhile, Alfredo Aceves was once again carrying more than his fair share of the load on the mound, allowing a lone run in six innings of work. While he once again showed a tendency to lose control for short periods of time, he also brought strikeouts to the table this time around, gathering six of them along the way.
Adam Wilk would stabilize things for the Tigers until the eighth, with the Sox scoring only two more runs, but that final half inning proved exceptionally difficult for Detroit. The Red Sox once again unloaded for five runs in an inning, sending nine men to the plate to match their total against Cleveland with 14 runs. With the tarp being rolled out on the field before the bottom of the frame could start, the game ended as another big win for a Sox team on a roll.