The Red Sox scored a season-high 16 runs against the Blue Jays, rolling to their eighth straight win and into a tie for the best record in all of baseball with a 16-4 victory in Toronto on Saturday.
Unlike many of their other double-digit blowouts this year, this was still a game just before the halfway point. There were no seven-run first innings. Instead, the Sox broke through against Brandon Morrow in the third.
After Jason Varitek flew out to start the frame, the Sox picked up three straight hits from Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, and Adrian Gonzalez—the last being an RBI double—to go up 1-0, and then scored again when Morrow intentionally loaded the bases before hitting Jed Lowrie with a pitch. Carl Crawford hit a sacrifice fly with one out, and Marco Scutaro capped it all off with a bloop single to score David Ortiz and make it 4-0.
The Sox would add another run in the fourth, but John Lackey found himself in some trouble in the bottom of the inning, walking Jose Molina and giving up doubles to Adam Lind and Rajai Davis to bring the Jays back within three runs at 5-2.
Any hopes the Jays had built of a comeback were quickly dashed, however, as the Sox opened the floodgates in the fifth. After getting Jed Lowrie to fly out, Morrow completely lost the ability to get anyone out. Carl Crawford, Marco Scutaro, and J.D. Drew each singled to score another run, and then Jason Varitek delivered the knockout blow by lifting a fly ball to right field that just would not land until it had cleared the wall in right-center.
The score was already 9-2 at this point, but the Sox weren’t finished. With Jason Frasor now on the mound Jacoby Ellsbury singled, Adrian Gonzalez walked, and up came David Ortiz. With the count full, Frasor delivered a flat fastball, and Ortiz hit a rocket up and over the right field wall for the second three-run shot of the inning to put the game away at 12-2.
John Lackey had been working a nice night to that point, giving up a few hard hit balls but striking out plenty as well. He would allow two more runs in the bottom of the sixth on an Edwin Encarnacion homer, but on the whole he had a decent outing, and by that point it was hardly enough to effect the outcome. The Red Sox tacked on four more runs as the game ran through its final innings, and the Red Sox clinched a series win with one dominant game.