Masterson & Bullpen Shaky As Indians Fall To Red Sox 8-1

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday the Indians hitters dropped soft fly balls just inside the foul lines and hit line drives that were just out of the reach of the Red Sox defenders as they defeated the Red Sox 12-3. Tonight, the line drives were right at outfielders and hard grounders were easily handled by infielders and the offense unable to string anything together in falling to the Red Sox by a final score of 8-1.

Justin Masterson (7-2, 3.20 ERA) took the loss laboring through 6 innings and allowing 5R/ER on 6 hits striking out 5, walking 1, and allowing a 3-run homer to Mike Carp.  The loss drops the Indians to 27-20 on the year. The victory goes to John Lackey (3-4, 2.72 ERA) who allowed 1 unearned run in 7 innings of work on only 2-hits striking out 8 and walking 3. 

The Red Sox jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the 2nd on a 3-run homer by Mike Carp and they never looked back. They extended their lead to 4-1 in the bottom of the 6th on a botched double play on a poor throw by Jason Kipnis and they broke the game open against Rich Hill and Matt Albers posting 4 runs in the bottom of the 7th to increase their lead to 8-1. 

Screen Grab: MLB.com

The Indians scored their only run in the 3rd inning when Mark Reynolds stole third and Jarrod Saltalamacchia‘s throw sailed into left field allowing Reynolds to score.

The Indians and Red Sox will lockup again tomorrow in a battle of lefties at 1:35.  Scott Kazmir (2-2, 6.35 ERA) will look to rebound from his last start where he went only 3 innings allowing 5R/ER on 7 hits while striking out only 2 and walking 2. The Indians will be up against Jon Lester (6-1, 3.15 ERA) who like Kazmir is coming off a rough outing against the Chicago White Sox where he gave up 6R/5ER on 7 hits in 6 innings striking out 2 and walking 3.

Source:

The Good:

Michael Brantley had 2 hits and has his average up  to .313.

The Bad:

Rich Hill and Matt Albers were unable to hold the Red Sox off the board in the 7th inning allowing 4 runs to cross home plate on 3 hits, a walk, and a hit batter.