Road Warriors.....

 One of the safest bets in sports these days is to bet against the Boston Red Sox when they are playing on the road.  If you had the home team today, you would have guessed right.  For the third time this season, the Sox have been swept on the road by a far inferior team.  Todays losing effort drops the Sox to 10-17 on the road this season. Astonishing numbers for a team that has played over .500 ball the last five seasons on the road.

  The Jon Lester we normally see was on full display today.  You know the one that waste pitches, struggles with command, goes deep into counts, but not games.  The A's got to Lester early and often today, and he was history by the 5th inning.  It could have been fatigue for Lester who had a hectic week after the no hitter, or the fact he threw 130 pitches his last start.  Whatever the case, Lester did not have it today, and he made the weak A's offense look pretty good.  Proving once again that bad pitching will never win out.  The bullpen was again pretty awful, although at least Craig Hansen went two innings allowing only one run.  However this was 4-3 game at one point, until the Red Sox bullpen got involved.

  There is a couple pieces of good news for the Sox today.  One is today is the last game in this series for the Sox in Oakland.  The other is Manny breaking out of his mini-slump today, with a 3-4 performance.  The bad news however is that the roadtrip continues through to Seattle tommorrow.  The Sox have dreadful against Seattle on the road the last few years, a trend that probably will not be reversed this year.  Bartolo Colon will face Felix Hernadez in tommorrows match-up.  You remember him, he one hit the Sox the last time he faced them.