A's broom Boston out of Oakland

Oakland 6, Sox 3
WP: Blanton (3-6)
LP: Lester (3-3)
SV: Street (11)
HRs: BOS-Ortiz (11); OAK-Cust (8)

Watching Robert Downey, Jr as Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, was infinitely more enjoyable than witnessing the Sox get swept by the A's

RECAP:
Gotta confession to make here - I didn't catch a minute of this game.

Instead the fam and I went to see Iron Man at the multiplex before it gets booted out in favor of the myriad other summer blockbusters.

And after seeing the end result of both the film and the game, I'm sure as hell glad we did.

I DVRd the game and planned on watching it when we got back, but after seeing the final score (damn ESPN crawl) I decided against it. Why ruin a perfectly good holiday weekend?

From what I did see on the highlights and recaps Jon Lester of course did not come close to matching his masterful performance from last Monday, surrendering a base hit to the first batter he faced en route to a decent (5IP, 7H, 4R, 3ER, 2BB, 3K) but not quality start, and the Boston offense was once again held in check, this time by mediocre Joe Blanton.

The good things to come from the contest, which was Boston's 7th straight road defeat, were David Ortiz' 11th homer of the season in the first inning and Manny Ramirez' first 3-hit game in three weeks. Ramirez, who improved to 13-21 off Blanton lifetime, also drove in a pair of runs, matching his total from the last 10 games combined.

The bad, aside from Lester's letdown, include Boston batters striking out 10 times, 3 by Jason Varitek and 2 each by Lowell, Youk and JD Drew, and Craig Hansen (1.2IP, 2H, 1ER, 1K) getting shelled again, raising his ERA to a Gagne-esque 7.20.

All in all it was a wasted trip to the Bay area, and the trio of losses combined with Tampa Bay's three game winning streak propelled the rays back into first place as the Sox head to Seattle to take on the sliding Mariners.

And if things start going poorly in that series I might have to go check out Indiana Jones.

RECORD: 31-22
AL EAST: 1/2 GB
STREAK: L3
LAST 10: 7-3
UP NEXT: Mon @ SEA 10:10 Colon vs. Hernandez