Price Outduels Lester as Sox Lose 3-2

By Pete Rampino in Featured, Red Sox, Top Story ⋅ April 12, 2011 at 10:56pm ⋅ Post a comment

The struggles continue for Boston as they dropped their second straight game to the Tampa Bay Rays with Tuesday night’s 3-2 loss. It was a battle of ace pitchers as Tampa Bay’s David Price picked up his first win of the season by giving up only 2 ER in 7.2 IP to get the victory. Jon Lester looked great wth his 7 inning performance allowing 3 ER and striking out 8. Lester’s downfall for the night was the 5th inning, which is where he struggled to keep his pitches down in the zone and it resulted in all three Rays runs.

Recap

Boston was first on the board in the 3rd inning where Darnell McDonald (getting the start in RF) launched his first home run of the season for a 1-0 Sox lead.

The lead only lasted until the 5th inning as Sam Fuld scored on a fielder’s choice to tie the game and then former Sox CF Johnny Damon hit a two-run single to give the Rays the 3-1 lead.

Boston battled back in the 6th as a leadoff double by Dustin Pedroia almost went to waste until Jed Lowrie stepped to the plate with two outs and drove him in with a double of his own, cutting the lead to 3-2.

We go to the bottom of the 9th, Rays still up 3-2. Terry Francona had benched Jacoby Ellsbury, J.D. Drew, and David Ortiz for this contest, but he let them off the leash hoping to spark a rally. Kyle Farnsworth came in to work the 9th inning for Tampa Bay and promptly struck out Ellsbury and Drew. Fenway Park came to its feet as Big Papi came to bat…and immediately flied out to right field to end the game.