Royals vs Red Sox recap
Royals vs Red Sox boxscore
Oh, hello, offense. It's nice to see you after all this time.
Four home runs? Yes, please. Twelve hits? Yes, sir. Fifteen runs? Yeah, that's nifty.
It still wasn't the prettiest game, but at least the Sox won, 15-9, over the Royals. John Smoltz pitched a really good game to earn the win. He went five innings and gave up four hits, one run, one walk and struck out seven. He lowered his ERA to 5.40.
And that offense was pretty good, starting with Kevin Youkilis. Youk went 3 for 4 with two home runs, four runs scored, four runs batted in and a walk. Don't forget that walk.
Youk is obviously in Mash Mode. Some games Youk will just go off like this and it's fun to watch. Hopefully he'll carry this through the All-Star break and right into the second half.
Other offensive highlights include: Dustin Pedroia have two hits, two runs and an RBI, David Ortiz and Jason Varitek each had solo shots and Varitek chipped in three runs scored.
And now for the ugly. Justin Masterson was flat out bad. He allowed five runs in 0.1 innings of work. Hideki Okajima was a little better, allowing one run and three hits in 0.1 innings.
The savior, however, was young Daniel Bard. Coming in a 9-7 ballgame, Bard shut the door. He ended up working two full innings, allowed one hit, no earned runs (two were unearned) and he struck out three. His relief appearance was huge and kept the Sox in the ballgame.
Takashi Saito pitched the 9th and struck out one.
Sox look to win the series Sunday in a 1:35 p.m. game. Josh Beckett takes the hill against the Royals' Bruce Chen.