RED SOX- Saturday's matchup against the A's was looking good for the Red Sox early and Jon Lester was cruising through the second game of the three game series against Oakland.
In the bottom of the first, Dustin Pedroia led off with a walk followed by a Xander Bogaerts single and a walk to David Ortiz to load up the bases with nobody out. A's starter Tommy Milone then got Mike Napoli to strike out, bringing Johnny Gomes up with the bases loaded and one away. Gomes cranked the 21st pitch of the game into the monster seats for the Red Sox second grand slam in less than 24 hours and giving the Red Sox an early 4-0 lead.
Meanwhile, Lester would give up his only hit of the day- a leadoff single to outfielder Craig Gentry- to lead off the top of the 3rd, but got Josh Reddick, Nick Punto and Coco Crisp [all former Red Sox players- NANESB!] to strike out, stranding Gentry on base.
Big Papi would lead off the bottom of the 3rd with a solo homer to make it 5-0 and David Ross led off the bottom of the 4th with a homer to left field, giving the Red Sox a 6-0.
Jon Lester's day was done after throwing 8 complete innings of 1-hit baseball and striking out 15, but the top of the 9th inning was an adventure when Chris Capuano came on in relief of Lester and promptly gave up 2 runs without even recording an out to cut the A's deficit by a third. After a Jed Lowrie double and hitting Josh Donaldson with a pitch, Capuano had to be pulled for Koji Uehara. Koji then walked Yoenis Cespedes. Derek Norris hit into what looked like a sure double play with Lowrie getting thrown out at home, but David Ross threw high to Napoli and the ball went into shallow right field to bring Donaldson home and have the lead cut in half with only one away in the 9th. However, Uehara would get Alberto Callaspo to strike out for out number two and the game ended on a Brandon Moss fly ball to right field.
The Red Sox go on to win by a 6-3 final and after getting swept in a day-night doubleheader by the Rays, the Red Sox have already won this weekend's series against the team with the best record in the American league. The Red Sox look for the sweep on Sunday afternoon. Sonny Gray [4-1; 1.76 ERA] will get the start against John Lackey [4-2; 3.83 ERA]. First pitch is scheduled for 1:35 and the game will be televised on NESN.
BOSTON BRUINS- The Boston Bruins staged a late come-from-behind win against the Montreal Canadiens in the 3rd period of Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on Saturday afternoon.
Danny Paille put the Bruins on the board with just under 7 minutes to go in the first- the only scoring in the first. However, Montreal would tie the game up with a Mike Weaver tally just 1:10 into the second period. The Habs would then take the lead- seemingly for good thanks to back to back power play goals from Thomas Vanek- one with just two minutes to go in the second and one six and a half minutes into the third- to make it a 3-1 Montreal.
Then things got interesting.
Just after the midway mark of the third, Dougie Hamilton got the Bruins to within one. Just a little more than three minutes later Patrice Bergeron managed to tie the game up at 3-3. But the Bruins had something besides overtime on their minds as Reilly Smith put Boston back on top for the first time since the first period to give Boston a 4-3 lead with 3:30 to go in regulation. And just in case you thought a 1-goal lead wasn't safe enough for the Bruins in the final 3 minutes of regulation Milan Lucic tallied an empty netter after Carey Price was pulled with just over a minute to go, giving Boston a 5-3 lead.
Boston goes on to score four unanswered goals in just under 8 minutes to tie the series up at 1-1. Carey Price stopped 30 of 34 shots faced while Tukka Rask turned aside 25 of 28 shots faced. Despite the loss, the Habs still were more effective on the power play going 2 for 6 while the Bruins went 0 for 3.
The series will resume in Montreal on Tuesday night. Puck is scheduled to drop at 7:00 ET from Montreal and the game will be televised on the NBC Sports Network.
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