So the Red Sox rout the Rays when it's Jon Lester vs. Jeff Niemann. This I can understand.
And when the Rays respond in the David Price - Daisuke Matsuzaka matchup, it's not particularly surprising.
But you tell me who should be winning an 11-5 game between Tim Wakefield and Matt Garza!
Somehow, tonight, it was the Red Sox. Now, Tim Wakefield wasn't great, but wow did the Sox and their Triple-A lineup ever get to the Rays.
On a night where every starter but Bill Hall recorded a hit, Marco Scutaro lead the charge. Batting out of the leadoff spot, Scutaro not only set the table for the middle of the order, but cleared it too, launching two homers in a four hit game.
The aforementioned middle were no slouches themselves. Victor Martinez, David Ortiz, and Adrian Beltre each swatted their own long balls and reached base three times a piece.
The Red Sox' young call-ups took advantage of the opportunity, too. Josh Reddick swung away in his first start since returning to the Sox, grabbing his first career three hit game in the majors, Lars Anderson collected his first two major league hits, and Ryan Kalish doubled off the wall. The trio showed off their gloves, too, looking smooth and playing hard in the field (Josh Reddick in particular ran down a line shot at the wall, making the grab with a Drew-like effortlessness before bouncing off the Monster).
There were a few gaffes here-and-there. Scutaro let another ball get by him, there was some particularly inept baserunning from Bill Hall (tagged out rounding second on Lars' first hit) and Eric Patterson (doubled off in a rundown situation when he was confused who was out with two runners occupying the same bag). And don't forget to give Tim Bogar some blame for the latter situation. But all in all it was a great night for the Sox, and a nice showing by some hopefully future stars.