Red Sox Lose 7th in 8 Games

                                                       Sports Illustrated

The Red Sox failed to build off of their first win of the season on Saturday, losing to the Yankees 9-4. New York got on the board first, scoring two runs in the top of the 2nd. After the Red Sox cut the lead in half in the 3rd, the game started to get away from Sox starter Clay Buchholz. In the fourth, Yankees offseason acquisition Russel Martin hit a 3-run homer after Buchholz had started the inning surrendering a walk and a double. He then allowed two more hits and Tito yanked him from the game. Buchholz was only able to last 3.2, allowing 5 runs, 4 earned, on 8 hits and 3 walks. The Red Sox offense, however, was able to answer in the bottom half of the inning, scoring three runs of their own to crawl within 1. This would be all of the runs they would score, though. In the top half of the fifth, the Yankees got a 2-run shot from Curtis Granderson to give them a 3-run lead, and that would be plenty. The Red Sox would have plenty of baserunners in the game, recording 10 hits, but failed to drive them home. The Yankees got a solid performance out of their bullpen, and were able to knot this series up at one.

News and Notes

• The Red Sox offense needs to do a better job at capitalizing on scoring opportunities. In Saturday's game, the inning's leadoff hitter got on base 5 times, but only crossed the plate twice. Something is not right with this lineup, because three chances should be enough to get that guy across with this lineup. In today's game, Alex Gonzalez was the main culprit. After having success in his first 8 games, Gonzalez went 0-4 today. Of course, everybody has bad games, but his presence would have been huge for this offense. 

• Red Sox offseason target Russel Martin added some punch to the Yankees lineup today. Martin hit two home runs, numbers 2 and 3 on the year. He hit the big one in the 4th that broke the game open for New York, and also added a relatively meaningless solo shot in the 7th. The Yankees also got a solid day out of newly acquired Eric Chavez, who took over the DHing duties for the day. Chavez went 3-5, scoring a run and knocking one in.