Even major league baseball’s leader in run support per nine innings Felix Doubront (8-4) could not get enough runs to overcome his subpar performance Monday night.
Red Sox pitchers allowed three home runs in their 9-6 loss to the Blue Jays at Fenway Park in a game that was delayed one hour and 56 minutes in the top of the seventh due to rain.
Before Doubront even recorded an out in the game the Red Sox trailed 4-0, highlighted by a two-run homerun by Colby Rasmus. The third and fourth runs were unearned as a result of an error by third baseman Will Middlebrooks.
“A couple of bad pitches,” Doubront said. “I felt pretty good, but like I said it was one of those days where you feel good but nothing happens. I have to go out and move forward. I am looking forward to my next start.”
Doubront allowed another run in the second inning before settling down in the middle innings. At one point he had retired 10-of-12 Blue Jays hitters from the third to the sixth inning.
Ben Franscisco doubled with two outs in the sixth and the next hitter J.P. Arencibia homered into the monster seats giving the Blue Jays a 7-5 lead at the time.
“He threw a lot of strikes and it seemed like he didn’t want to waste a lot of pitches. It seemed like a lot of them got hit,” manager Bobby Valentine said. “Not that they all got hit hard that’s for sure. I’d say he gave up six or seven hits off the end of the bat or that were jammed. About four of them were hit hard.”
Doubront went six innings allowing seven runs, five earned, on eleven hits, while walking one and striking out two. The eleven hits were a season-high, along with the seven runs.
“It wasn’t his best outing, but he will improve on that,” Valentine said.
The Red Sox did not give up after falling behind early, scoring two runs in the bottom of the first courtesy of a two-run bomb by David Ortiz over the Red Sox bullpen, scoring Dustin Pedroia.
Pedroia and Ortiz each scored again in the third inning cutting the deficit to 5-4.
The Red Sox tied the game in the fourth when Cody Ross led the inning off with a double and then scored on a single by Ryan Kalish.
“We kept battling,” Valentine said. “I liked our at bats. We just gave up too many runs.”
The fourth inning was as close to leading as the Red Sox would get as Arencibia homered in the sixth, and then in the seventh Jose Bautista ripped a two-run bomb into the monster seats off of reliever Matt Albers.
Albers has now allowed at least one run in three of his last four appearances, including home runs in back-to-back outings.
Following the rain delay Ortiz hit his second home run of the game, a solo shot to dead centerfield. Monday was his 39th career multi-home run game and 37th with the Red Sox, which is tied with Ted Williams for first on the Red Sox all-time list.
The two teams will play the second game of their three game series Tuesday night with the first pitch set for 7:10 p.m. Daisuke Matsuzaka (0-2) will be seeking his first win of 2012 and be opposed by Aaron Laffey (0-0).
