Sox Bullpen Blows It, Royals Steal Opener

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In a memorable night highlighted by David Ortiz hitting his 300th homerun, the Red Sox bullpen spoiled the historic feat by blowing the lead and letting the game get away from them, something we have rarely seen this season from baseball’s best bullpen.

The Red Sox jumped out to an early 3-0 lead off of Royal's starter Luke Hochevar in the 1st thanks in large part to David Ortiz's 300th career home run.  He joins an elite club which has only 124 members and 19 active players.  Before Ortiz's historic two-run blast, Kevin Youkilis hit an RBI single to make it a 1-0 game after Dustin Pedroia doubled to lead off the game.

As for Red Sox' starter Brad Penny, he was able to hold his own until the 4th inning in which he relinquished three runs.  Penny ended up pitching five innings, allowing three runs on six hits while only issuing one free-pass.  In the 5th, however, Dustin Pedroia smacked his 4th home run of the year to answer the Royals rally. 

But the 6th inning would prove to be the difference maker in the game.  After Penny was taken out of the game, Manny Delcarmen came into the game.  After giving up two doubles and a run, Justin Masterson came on to relieve the young righty.  

That however, proved to be no good, as Masterson gave up the game tying single to Ryan Freel and the go-ahead two-run home run to David Dejesus, making it a 7-5 game. In the top of the 8th, the Royals added an insurance run thanks to a Willie Bloomquist RBI triple that was hit off of Ramon Ramirez, the Royal's former setup man.

Boston tried to put together a rally in the 8th and was able to load the bases off of reliever Juan Cruz.  After issuing a sacrifice fly to Mark Kotsay, Royal's closer Joakim Soria came in and shut the door on the Sox by striking out Nick Green to limit the damage and end the threat.

Soria then went on to pitch a scoreless 9th to record his 14th save of the season.  The loss put the Red Sox in a tie for first place in the AL East division with the New York Yankees, due to the Yankees win against Minnesota.

Preview for Next Game:

After dropping the first game of the series to the Royals and falling 3-4 on the home stand, Boston will look to rebound as they send out their young southpaw Jon Lester.  So far on the season, Lester is 7-6 with an ERA of 4.16.  In his last start, Lester pitched into the 7th inning against Seattle while striking out nine batters.

Opposing him will be Royals starter Brad Bannister.  He is 6-6 on the season with an ERA of 3.87.  His last start was against the White Sox, picking up the win while pitching six innings and allowing only two runs.

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