Red Sox vs Blue Jays (4/4-4/6)

Game 1: The first five innings of Friday night’s game started out as a pitchers duel between Tim Wakefield and Shaun Marcum. Unfortunately for Boston, the Jays got to Wakefield for 3 runs in the bottom of the 6th inning. The Red Sox quickly answered in the top of the 7th with a 3-run homerun by J.D. Drew. It’s early in the season, but it appears that 2008 is going to be different for Drew.

To start the bottom of the 7th, Francona decided to go with David Aardsma who allowed a leadoff walk. Aardsma was promptly removed in favor of Javier Lopez who allowed a hit. Finally, Francona went to the man with whom he should have started the inning, Manny Delcarmen. Delcarmen was able to record the first two outs of the inning with no damage before Frank Thomas came up to the plate and ripped a double to left.

The Blue Jays tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the 8th and Brian Tallet and Jeremy Accardo tossed scoreless frames to give the Blue Jays the win and drop the Red Sox to 3-2.

Game 2: Saturday afternoon’s game was an ugly showing for the Boston Red Sox despite a decent outing by top prospect Clay Buchholz. The final line wasn’t pretty for Buchholz, but it didn’t accurately tell the story of how he pitched. He finished with 5 IP, 6 H, 2 BB, and 7 Ks.
When Buchholz left the game after 5 innings, the Red Sox were still in the game as they trailed 4-2, much of the damage resulting from a fielding error by Casey. The Red Sox bullpen, however, offered no relief. Kyle Snyder allowed 2 runs in 1/3 inning. Brian Corey followed with an even worse performance as he allowed 4 runs in 1/3 inning. At the completion of the 6th inning, the Jays led 10-2. They cruised to victory as the Red Sox dropped their 2nd straight game.

One bright spot: Julian Tavarez pitched 2.1 scoreless innings in relief and looked very good.

The Red Sox look to correct their poor fortunes in Sunday’s game as Josh Beckett returns to face Roy Halladay in the finale.

Game 3: Sunday’s game was in many ways uglier than Saturday’s in the eyes of Red Sox fans. The team made 4 errors, 3 by Julio Lugo. Many of these errors came on routine plays and led to scoring innings for the Blue Jays. Not only that, but the errors played a big role by unnecessarily driving Josh Beckett’s pitch count up.

In the third inning, the Red Sox took an early 1-0 lead on Jacoby Ellsbury’s first homerun of the season. The Jays answered in the bottom of the 4th with a 2-run homer by Vernon Wells before Jason Varitek tied things up with a solo homer in the top of the 5th. Unfortunately, the Red Sox completely came unraveled in the bottom half of that inning. Beckett recorded 2 outs before allowing a cheap, broken-bat single to Aaron Hill and walking the following two batters. Frank Thomas was coming to the plate and Beckett was removed for Manny Delcarmen who had been beaten by Thomas on Thursday night. The pitch that Thomas hit on Friday night was a Delcarmen changeup. As a result, Thomas was well aware that the fastball was on its way and he was sitting dead red. Thomas crushed Delcarmen’s first pitch, a fastball that was right in his wheelhouse, for a grand slam to give Toronto a 6-2 lead.

The Jays added to that lead in the following inning with a double by Aaron Hill. The Sox attempted to battle back with a solo homerun by J.D. Drew in the 7th and an RBI single by Ortiz in the 8th. The Red Sox actually ended up bringing the tying run to the plate against Jeremy Accardo and the Jays. Unfortunately, the tying run was Julio Lugo who had done everything in his power to cost the Red Sox the game early on. Fittingly, Lugo flied out weakly to center to end the game and drop the Red Sox to 3-4.