The Red Sox routed Ricky Romero and the Toronto Blue Jays Wednesday afternoon, taking a 10-4 win and grabbing their fifth straight series victory.
While a shaky start for Jon Lester put the Sox behind 1-0 headed to the bottom of the first, the Sox didn't let it rattle them in the least. With Ricky Romero coming out wild, throwing just three of his first 16 pitches for strikes, the Boston quickly evened the score with a Daniel Nava walk and Dustin Pedroia double.
A walk to David Ortiz and single from Cody Ross would load the bases for Adrian Gonzalez, who could only manage a relatively weak ground ball to first. Fortunately for the Red Sox, that's where Edwin Encarnacion was waiting, making a mess of things by waving at the ball feebly as it passed right by him and into right field for a two-run, two-base error. A Will Middlebrooks groundout brought home a fourth run before Mike Aviles and Darnell McDonald added singles to make it 6-1.
The next few innings would be rather quieter, as the Sox only pushed one run across in the second and went scoreless in the third despite putting runners on second and third. Jon Lester, meanwhile, recorded nine straight outs to get to the fourth without any further trouble. Jose Bautista would unload a solo shot to kick off the frame, But Lester would respond by retiring the next six batters while the Red Sox scored three between the fourth and fifth, including home run no. 399 for David Ortiz.
Lester would unfortunately not be able to stay solid through the end of the day, as both Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion put good wood on changeups in the sixth. With Encarnacion's swing leaving the ball somewhere in orbit, Lester was left with four earned runs, putting an unfortunate note on what had been a good day.
Still, with the Sox having effectively put the game away in the first, the rest was academic. Lester went through the seventh, handing the ball off to Mark Melancon and Clayton Mortensen, who was spared a home run when Darnell McDonald went to the air to pull back a certain home run off the bat of Kelly Johnson in right field.
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