Toronto Blue Jays Get Shutout in Series Finale against Boston Red Sox

With the Toronto Blue Jays 3-0 loss to Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Boston Red Sox, they have officially tied their season series 9-9 and rookie Jays' pitcher Scott Richmond showed the Jays that he is good when he is in control.

While Richmond has gone winless in all three of his starts in his career, it is not due to his pitching, but mostly because of a lack of run support and today's game was a great example of that.

Richmond got off to a rocky start, giving up a lead off triple to speedy lead off hitter Jacoby Ellsbury, who was then knocked home on a sacrifice fly from the bat of Dustin Pedroia.

Richmond was on the wrong end of some bad luck when he threw a 3-2 changeup well off the plate, yet slugger David Ortiz still managed to slice the pitch over the left-field wall for a two-run shot that put the Sox up 3-0.

Richmond was relieved after five innings of work having thrown just 83 pitches. The reason for the early removal was because this was Richmond's first appearance since August 29th when he was still in AAA Syracuse.

Richmond would end his night having giving up just those three runs in five innings of work. He gave up five hits, one walk, while managing to strike out four batters. Relievers John Parrish (two innings), Brian Wolfe (one inning), and Brian Tallet (one inning) all pitched perfect in relief.

Meanwhile, the Jays' offense only mustered three hits off of Boston starter Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Red Sox bullpen, two from Vernon Wells and the other from Joe Inglett. Matsuzaka pitched seven shutout innings, surrendering only two hits, two walks, while striking out six batters for his 18th win of the season.

Hideki Okajima pitched a perfect eighth inning while closer Jonathan Papelbon closed out the game, getting himself his 40th save of the season.

Up next: Jesse Litsch (12-8) starts off a series against Mike Mussina (18-9) and his New York Yankees.