• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Athletics-Red Sox Preview

Jul 30, 2009 - 4:31 AM By MATT BROWN STATS Editor

Oakland (42-57) at Boston (58-41), 1:35 p.m. EDT

Little of the Boston Red Sox's success from the season's first half has carried over past the All-Star break. Jon Lester's pitching is one of the few things that has remained strong.

The Red Sox turn to Lester on Thursday afternoon as they try to salvage a four-game split at home against the Oakland Athletics, the last-place club in the AL West.

Boston was an AL-best 54-34 at the All-Star break, good enough for a three-game lead over the New York Yankees in the East. The Red Sox (58-42) have dropped eight of 12 since, including the last two games in this series to fall 3 1/2 games behind surging New York. They currently hold the wild-card spot, but are only one game ahead of Texas in the loss column in that race.

Oakland (43-57) has scored the third-fewest runs in the AL, but has looked like an offensive juggernaut the past two nights, totaling 17 runs and 31 hits off Red Sox pitching. Adam Kennedy, who had a career-high five hits Tuesday, homered off Brad Penny on the game's first pitch Wednesday.

"It's good to get the offense going a little bit and score some runs, especially in this place," Kennedy said.

The A's did just that, plating five runs before Boston even got to bat and holding on to win 8-6, overcoming five RBIs from Boston's Mike Lowell.

"It looked like they didn't finish hitting since last night," said Lowell. "The first four pitches they had three hits. It was ridiculous. I guess we ran into them at the wrong time."

For the Red Sox, Lester (9-7, 3.79 ERA) may represent the best chance to cool off Oakland and right the ship. The left-hander's 1.83 ERA since May 31 leads all AL starters. He's 6-2 in that 10-start span with a .202 opponents' batting average and 84 strikeouts over 69 innings.

Last Saturday against Baltimore, Lester gave up two runs and struck out nine in 7 1-3 innings to lead the Red Sox to a 7-2 victory.

"The way he's throwing, I'd hate to say it doesn't matter (who he's facing), but if he pitches like that he's going to be OK," Boston manager Terry Francona said.

Lester endured one of his worst outings of the season April 13 at Oakland, surrendering six runs and 10 hits - two homers - in six innings of Boston's 8-2 defeat.

He'll be opposed by fellow left-hander Gio Gonzalez (2-2, 7.75), who followed up the worst start of his two-year career with the best. Gonzalez yielded 11 runs, 10 hits and four homers - all career highs - in 2 2-3 innings against Minnesota on July 20, but bounced back Saturday in New York, limiting the powerful Yankees to one run and two hits in a 6 2-3 innings of a 6-4 win.

Gonzalez, who has never faced the Red Sox, now has an opportunity to help the A's complete their eight-game road trip against the two AL East powers with a 4-4 record.

Oakland returns home Friday for a three-game series with Toronto, while Boston heads to Baltimore to open a nine-game road trip against division rivals.