How’s this for fitting: In one of the fastest games of the season, the fastest guy on the team accounted for all the offense.
Jacoby Ellsbury hit a three-run home run, Jon Lester threw seven innings of three-hit ball and the Red Sox picked up a 3-1 win in the opener of their doubleheader against the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday. The contest was over in a crisp 2 hours, 24 minutes.
Tampa Bay took the lead in the first, when Desmond Jennings scored on an Evan Longoria groundout. Lester was pristine from then on, and Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon finished things with two innings of perfect relief.
The Sox — alone in first place, at least for the moment — struck in the third, when Josh Reddick and Mike Aviles singled. Ellsbury brought them home with a shot into the right field seats. It was his 21st home run of the season — more than the rest of his career combined.
Lester fanned eight in the victory, which dropped his ERA to 3.22. James Shields (11-10) was the hard-luck loser, surrendering just three hits in an eight-inning complete game.
