The story appears on

Page A4

September 5, 2013

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

HomeSportsBaseball

Lester wins pitchers鈥 duel against Scherzer

Boston’s Jon Lester outdueled Max Scherzer as the Red Sox beat Detroit 2-1 on Tuesday, ending the Tiger pitcher’s chance of becoming just the second pitcher ever to open a season with a 20-1 record.

The Red Sox maintained their 5 1-2 game lead in the American League East division over Tampa Bay, which beat the Los Angeles Angels 7-1.

Detroit saw its lead in the AL Central trimmed to a still comfortable 7-1/2 games over Cleveland, which beat Baltimore 4-3.

Meanwhile in the AL West, Texas defeated Oakland 5-1 to take sole possession of the divisional lead, a game ahead of the Athletics.

In the AL wild-card race, Oakland is 2-1/2 games ahead of Tampa Bay, which holds the second berth by the same margin ahead of the New York Yankees, who beat the Chicago White Sox 6-4.

In the National League, with the East and West titles all but decided, the fight rages on in the Central division, which looks likely to yield three playoff spots. Pittsburgh opened a two-game lead with a 4-3 win over Milwaukee.

Pittsburgh is clear of St Louis, which was beaten by Cincinnati 1-0, allowing the Reds to creep with 1-1/2 games of the Cardinals.

Boston’s Lester (13-8) lowered his ERA to 1.71 in his past six starts. He allowed one earned run with a season-high nine strikeouts and no walks.

Scherzer (19-2), who won his first 13 decisions, lost for the first time since July 13.

Roger Clemens is the only pitcher to start 20-1. He ended up 20-3 with the Yankees in 2001.

Texas’ Martin Perez allowed one run over seven innings to win his sixth straight start and guide the Rangers to a 5-1 win over Oakland.

After falling into a tie for first with the A’s when they lost the series opener, the Rangers bounced back behind another strong performance from Perez (9-3).

Mitch Moreland homered for Texas, which scored three unearned runs in the fifth — with two hits back toward pitcher Bartolo Colon which he could not glover — to take a 4-1 lead.

Cleveland’s Ubaldo Jimenez pitched six scoreless innings to steer the Indians to a 4-3 win over Baltimore.

Jimenez (10-9) has allowed three earned runs or less in eight consecutive starts.

In other games, it was: Braves 3, Mets 1; Nationals 9, Phillies 6; Royals 4, Mariners 3; Marlins 6, Cubs 2; Dodgers 7, Rockies 4; Twins 9, Astros 6 (12); Blue Jays 10, Diamondbacks 4; and Padres 3, Giants 2.

Tampa Bay’s Matt Moore pitched into the sixth inning in his return from injury, helping the Rays beat the Angels.

Moore (15-3) won his seventh straight decision, yielding one unearned run in 5 1-3 innings as the Rays snapped a five-game losing skid. The All-Star missed the entire month of August because of elbow soreness.

Desmond Jennings and Yunel Escobar hit homers for Tampa Bay.

 


 

Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

娌叕缃戝畨澶 31010602000204鍙

Email this to your friend