“He’s always good,’’ Lackey said of Sabathia. “He’s a guy you’ve got to throw up a lot of zeros against.’’
And Lackey couldn’t.
The Sox took a step back from the positives of Friday night’s series-opening win. They did not, however, lose any ground in the wild-card race, with the Rays losing big (17-11) to the Blue Jays.
On Friday night, Sox starter Clay Buchholz again was excellent; he has allowed three runs or fewer in 16 of his 19 starts this season.
Yesterday, Lackey allowed five runs — the 11th time in 23 starts he has allowed at least four. His ERA increased to 4.60.
Sabathia pitched eight innings of two-run ball, holding the Sox scoreless in every inning but the second, before handing off to Mariano Rivera.
Sabathia did a particularly impressive job against David Ortiz, who grounded into a double play in the first, and followed that with three strikeouts, further diminishing his already bad numbers against lefthanders. Ortiz is now batting .209 against southpaws, with one home run in 110 at-bats.
“He’s always tough,’’ Sox manager Terry Francona said of Sabathia. “He’s so consistent, righties it’s fastball-changeup, and to the lefties he mixes in the breaking ball. He commands and competes. There’s nothing different. You know what’s coming, and you just have to hit it because he commands so well, he just goes back and forth.’’
Those were words that could have been applied to Lackey in the past. He came to the Red Sox billed as a guy who commands and competes, who doesn’t walk many, and doesn’t give up too many hits. All that has changed.
His walks per nine innings hadn’t topped 2.4 in each of his last three seasons. This year it’s at 3.56. His strikeouts per nine innings hadn’t been fewer than 7.09 over his last three seasons. This year it’s 5.83.
“When we faced him, we thought he was good. Now that we have him, we think he’s good,’’ Francona said. “His ERA’s higher . . . I think we all think he’s good. He’s been that guy at times this year, where like today, they bunch four hits together or he’s left the game and given up a couple extra runs. We love him to death. Just got outpitched today, or we got outplayed.’’
