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Red Sox 8, Padres 2: Sox complete sweep with 18-hit assault

The Red Sox hit and hit and hit Thursday afternoon, putting up eight runs on the Padres and completing the sweep.

By Ben Buchanan
Darren McCollester

The Red Sox picked up 18 hits and eight runs against the San Diego Padres, completing their sweep with an 8-2 Independence Day victor.

Starting his day off with a hard-hit out and a walk, Allen Webster was frankly not all that different in his best performance to date than he had been in his disaster outings. Still lacking command, Webster found himself in a lot of unfortunate counts, and ended up walking four batters in his six innings of work.

Really the game for Webster came down to the two innings in which he surrendered his two runs, and how much worse they could have been. In the third, the Padres loaded the bases with zero outs, but could only bring home the one run on a sacrifice fly. And in the fifth, Jesus Guzman came just short of tying the game with a three-run homer, ending up with just a smashed wall ball single to drive in a second run.

Either inning could have spelled disaster, but in the end the Padres lacked that big hit, be it the one final knock to translate baserunners into runs, or the one to break a small inning open into a big one.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, got that big hit all day long. In the bottom of the first, it was Dustin Pedroia doubling down the left field line to drive home Jacoby Ellsbury and Shane Victorino after a pair of leadoff hits. In the second, Brandon Snyder did it all at once with a solo shot into the bullpens to make it 3-0. Jose Iglesias punched a ground-rule double off Pesky's pole in the fourth to recoup the first run surrendered by Allen Webster, and Jonny Gomes singled home Mike Napoli in the fifth to make up for the second. The sixth inning saw David Ortiz drive in two with the bases loaded and two outs, and in the eighth Jacoby Ellsbury finally found the range again, launching his second homer of the season into the bleachers to make it, finally 8-2.

With the big lead, the Red Sox actually got some relatively stress-free innings for their bullpen, to boot. Andrew Bailey finally managed a clean inning, striking out two, and Alex Wilson and Craig Breslow closed out the final frames, securing the sweep for the Red Sox.

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