Boston southpaw Jon Lester heads back to the mound Saturday afternoon and will try to shake off his first loss of the season by facing a team he's dominated during his career.
Lester gave up six runs -- five earned -- in six innings of a 6-4 road loss to the Chicago White Sox on Monday. Now he faces the Cleveland Indians in the third installment of this four-game series at Fenway Park.
Lester earned the victory at Cleveland on April 18 when he yielded four hits and two runs in seven innings. He's 6-1 with a 3.27 ERA in 12 career starts against the Tribe.
Scott Kazmir counters on the hill for the Indians. The lefty allowed seven hits and five runs in three-plus innings of a no-decision against Seattle on Monday. Kazmir is 8-8 with a 4.06 ERA in 25 starts against the Red Sox.
Friday night, Mike Carp hit a three-run homer to back seven strong innings from John Lackey, as the Red Sox earned an 8-1 win.
Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury both knocked in two runs for the Red Sox, who bounced back from a 12-3 loss in the series opener on Thursday. Mike Napoli had an RBI and scored once.
Lackey (3-4) allowed just one unearned run on two hits while striking out eight and walking three.
"John had some good intensity tonight throughout," said Boston manager John Farrell. "He's not thinking about anything that's taken place in the past, either performance-wise or injury-wise, and he's going out and competing at a high level right now."
On Friday, the Red Sox placed outfielder Shane Victorino and third baseman Will Middlebrooks on the 15-day disabled list and recalled pitcher Alfredo Aceves and shortstop Jose Iglesias from Triple-A Pawtucket. Iglesias played third base and went 1-for-3 with a run scored.
Cleveland starter Justin Masterson (7-3) gave up five runs on six hits over six-plus innings against his former team. The right-hander, who was a second- round pick of Boston in 2006, brought a scoreless-innings streak of 19 into Friday's game.
"I was hanging a lot of sliders," Masterson said. "I wasn't getting through a lot of pitches like I wanted to. If I didn't hang a slider, I was hitting someone in the back foot with it. I just got in some bad counts. I didn't as feel as good as I would've liked to, but we tried to battle and work through it."
The Red Sox have won four of the five meetings this season.
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