Boston Red Sox-Kansas City Royals: Five Home Runs Power Boston Past Greinke

Caption: Kevin Youkilis watches his eighth inning home run—his first of the 2010 season—leave Kaufman Stadium during the Red Sox 8-3 win in Kansas City. Youk’s blast was one of five Sox home runs in the game.

The Red Sox hit five home runs off the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner tonight en route to an 8-3 victory in Kansas City, but the win came just inches from being a sidelight to an indescribable tragedy.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, Royals RF David DeJesus lined a single up the middle that literally brushed the back of Josh Beckett’s head on its way into center field. Had the baseball hit the right-hander squarely instead of merely grazing the back of his head, the win would have seemed extremely unimportant.

After the game, Beckett brushed the incident aside: “I’ve had some line drives hit back at me and stuff. I’ve been hit in the legs before, but never anywhere else… It didn’t hit me very hard. I wasn’t too worried about it.”

Incredible.

With tragedy averted, Red Sox Nation is able to enjoy a noteworthy victory in The Red Sox House of Horrors, Kansas City…and the ballclub did it against Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke, to boot.

Tonight’s game was the coming out party for reserves Jeremy Hermida, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek, all of whom contributed considerably to the win. Lowell made a couple of very nice defensive plays at the hot corner. Hermida hit his first home run as a member of the Red Sox, and Varitek hit two of the team’s five home runs to pace the offense. Kevin Youkilis hit his first home run of the year, and Dustin Pedroia chipped in with his second dinger.

Beckett (1-0) allowed three runs on nine hits over seven innings. He walked one and struck out four Royals batters. In recording the win, he beat the Royals for the fifth straight start and improved his career record against KC to 6-0 in eight career starts.

Kansas City led 1-0 after four innings, but Hermida led off the top of the fifth inning with his first home run. Varitek then hit Greinke’s next pitch into the bullpen to give the Red Sox a 2-1 advantage. It was the first time in Greinke’s career that he allowed home runs on consecutive pitches.

Youkilis led off the eighth inning with a solo homer off reliever Dusty Hughes. Varitek, making his first start of the year, homered off Luis Mendoza in the ninth. Three batters later, Pedroia hit a two-run shot to close out the scoring.

Royals CF Rick Ankiel had hits in each of his first two at-bats, including a RBI-single in the first inning that got the scoring under way. He started the series 6-for-6.

After taking the lead on the back-to-back home runs in the fifth inning, the Red Sox added a pair of runs in the seventh inning—the only runs they would score that were not the result of a home run. Greinke hit Marco Scutaro with a pitch. CF Jacoby Ellsbury then drove an RBI-double into right-center field and scored on a sac fly by Dustin Pedroia.

The Royals scored a pair of runs of their own in the bottom of the inning before the home run barrage continued and effectively put the game out of reach.

Daisuke Matsuzaka tossed five scoreless innings in a minor league rehab assignment for the Pawtucket Red Sox this afternoon.

Clay Buchholz will make his 2010 debut tomorrow afternoon in the rubber game of the series. He’ll be opposed by veteran righty Gil Meche.