Red Sox 6, Indians 3

I recognize how trivial last night's Red Sox game is in comparison to the events of last night, a murdered cop and my city on lockdown; but I'm stuck at home and there doesn't seem to be much new information in the past few hours.

This was a tight game until the 7th inning when the Red Sox blew it up with a 3-run inning to create some separation. That's the first proper sweep of the season for the Red Sox (the first game of the Tampa series was postponed for rain) and they're currently on a 6 game winning streak.

Jon Lester continued to roll and recorded his third straight quality start. The Red Sox are 4-0 in his starts and he's starting to look like the ace we always hoped he would become. He pitched 7 innings, gave up 4 hits, 1 walk, 2 earned runs and 5 strikeouts. In the second he allowed a leadoff ground rule double. The runner tagged up and moved to third on a sacrifice fly and then scored on a ground out by Mike Aviles to tie the score 1-1. The second run Lester gave up came in the 5th in a similar fashion. Mike Aviles hit a leadoff double. Aviles advanced to third on a ground out and then scored on another ground out to bring the Indians within a run at 3-2. Outside of that Lester stayed pretty clean and nobody else got beyond second base.
STARTING PITCHING GRADE: A-

Lester handed off the game to Andrew Miller with a comfortable 6-2 lead in the 8th inning. Miller struck out the first batter, but then hit some trouble by allowing a walk and a single. Both runners advanced on a fielder's choice to third. At this point Andrew Miller was pulled for Koji Uehara to get the final out with men on second and third. Uehara gave up an RBI double to make the score 6-3 before striking out Nick Swisher to end the threat. I think Uehara doesn't do as well coming into the game to get just one out with inherited runners. The only other time he did not have a clean inning was in a similar situation. Still, he hasn't been charged with an earned run this season. Andrew Bailey came in to close in the 9th for his third save opportunity of the season. Bailey had a 1-2-3 inning with a strikeout to close out the game.
BULLPEN GRADE: B-

Jacoby Ellsbury had a pretty good 2 for 5 day with a double. Mike Napoli went 2 for 5 with a triple and an RBI. Mike Carp followed up on his great game the night before with a pinch hit RBI single to provide some insurance. Stephen Drew was a black hole in the lineup again going 0 for 4 with no walks. I noticed he hit some balls well, but they weren't well placed. He's hitting .087 so far with the Red Sox. Meanwhile Jose Iglesias is hitting .217 in 6 games at Pawtucket. Iglesias is hardly tearing it up, but I wonder how long Drew can struggle like this before they'll consider bringing up Iglesias again. The laser show added an RBI single and Daniel Nava had an RBI single and a sacrifice fly.
HITTING GRADE: B+