Lester holds it down... Sox win 8-4

Josh Beckett will still get the ball in the first playoff game, and Dice-K still has a few more wins and a lower ERA, but in my mind, Jon Lester is the ace of this staff right now.

Lester made it look easy against the league's best offense, pitching 7+ innings and holding the Rangers to 3 runs on 7 hits, while fanning six. In fact, Lester didn't allow a run until the 7th, when he gave up a solo shot to Kinsler. That should have been it, but Mike Timlin came on in relief with two men on and promptly gave up a 3-run homer to Milton Bradley - tacking 2 more earned runs onto Letser's line.

With the bullpen tuckered out from last night's roller coaster, Tito turned to Lopez and Masterson to close out the game. Masterson gave up a hit and walk to make things interesting, but turned a nice double play on a high chopper to the mound to get out of the jam.
Lester earned his 11th win and looked great doing it, but he'll have to share the Hero of the Game spotlight with Kevin Youkilis. Youk, who traditionally tapers off in the second half, went 3 for 4 with 3 doubles in the cleanup spot. He's now batting .409 in August and .320 on the season - putting him 2 points behind Johnny Damon for the league's best BA.

Youkilis “has had a phenomenal offensive year,” Jason Varitek said. “We’ve known about him as a hitter, but now he’s added some power.”

“He comes to play hard. He come up with big hits,” Sean Casey said. “The energy he brings, you can’t measure it.”

As if leading the offense wasn't enough, Youk will be playing alot of the third base over the next few weeks, with Mike Lowell on the DL. He eventually shifted back to first in the 8th for defensive purposes, pushing another Red Sox Swiss Army knife, Jed Lowrie over to third.

Bottom Line: The Sox are on a roll, winning 9 of 12 in August. The Rays squeezed out a 3-2 win over Oakland to keep a 3 game lead in the East, but the Yankees lost and fell to 9 games back...

I think it's time to start looking at the Wild Card race and not the Yankees... The Sox have pushed the Rangers back with two big wins and have a 2.5 game lead over the Twins.