The Red Sox won their fourth straight game, beating Baltimore, 2-1, at Fenway Park, Sunday afternoon. Much more will be coming your way, but until then let’s give you some tidbits from the victory:

- It is the Red Sox’s 10th win in their last 12 games against the Orioles at Fenway, and has now won their sixth straight series over Baltimore.

- Jason Bay went 0 for 3, snapping his 24-game on-base streak, which entered the day as the second-longest in the American League behind Oakland’s Jack Cust (40).

- Kevin Youkilis went 1 for 2 with a double and a walk and has reached base safely in all 12 of Boston’s games this season, hitting safely in nine of those with seven extra-base hits (4 doubles, 3 home runs) over his last seven games. This season he is 22 of 47 (.468) with three homers, six doubles, nine RBI, 12 runs, and six walks.

- Jon Lester earned his first win of the season with seven scoreless innings, his longest scoreless outing since pitching 7 2/3 shutout innings against Tampa Bay on Sept. 8, 2008. It marks his longest outing overall since allowing five runs in seven frames at Toronto on Sept. 20, 2008 and is the first scoreless outing by a Red Sox starter this season.

- Lester fanned a season-high nine batters today, one shy of his career high set June 21, 2006 against Washington. It marks his fifth career outing with as many as nine strikeouts, his first since fanning nine against Tampa Bay on Sept. 8, 2008. Lester remains undefeated in nine career starts against the Orioles, going 7-0 with a 2.45 ERA, his highest marks for starts, wins and innings against any club in his career. Boston is 8-1 in thos nine starts.

- Takashi Saito gave up one run in the ninth inning but recorded his first save as a member of the Red Sox, his first save overall since Sept. 27, 2008 at San Francisco while with Los Angeles in his 2008 regular season finale. Red Sox relievers are now 5 for 5 in save opportunities. 

- Despite allowing a run in the ninth inning, Red Sox relievers have combined for a 0.86 ERA (2 ER/21.2 IP) over the last five games. With a scoreless inning, Ramon Ramirez has now gone 8 1/3  scoreless innings in his first six appearances for the Red Sox. Overall, he has not allowed a run in his last nine appearances, spanning 12 innings beginning Sept. 16, 2008.

QUOTES

Jon Lester

“Previous starts I kept saying I thought I threw the ball better than I did, better than the line score showed. It was nice today to go out and throw the ball well again and get the results I wanted to. It just reiterates in the back of your mind that OK, nothing is wrong, I’m still OK and just move forward.”

“I think making adjustments, I think was the biggest thing today. I struggled with my curveball early on and just kept not worrying about the result of it and just kept trying to throw it and get a feel for it and it definitely helped out in some big situations. I felt like I made adjustments from pitch to pitch a lot better than I did the last few starts.”

“(I felt) no stronger than I did the previous starts. It felt like a normal start day. I don’t know how to describe it, it just felt like a normal day, nothing out of the ordinary, didn’t feel like I had great stuff in the bullpen. Just more or less focused on trying to stay down in the zone and try to keep executing pitches the best I could.”

(On working with George Kottaras) “It was good, it was different. I’ve thrown to him a lot in Pawtucket when I was down there, obviously it’s a little different up here. But, he did a great job both calling the game and receiving and working hitters and not getting too predictable. He did a really good job.”

(On spring training outing with Kottaras compared to today) “I don’t think you can really look back on a spring training game and try to take information from there. It had been awhile since he caught me and we were in that game trying to get reacquainted and work on some stuff at the same time. Obviously the emphasis on the change-up this spring training was there so we really tried to work that into that outing. Once the lights come on it’s a different story, you’re not working on anything anymore. You’re going out trying to get people out.”

Terry Francona

“From the first pitch of the game he had power behind his pitches. He elevated his fastball early. As he got into the game he started that two-seamer, a couple breaking balls, a couple real good change-ups. Both the four-seamer and the two-seamer on his fastball were really effective.

“He’s such a perfectionist and sometimes there’s a fine line in this game where a ball doesn’t get caught or a couple of inches foul and then something else happens and one thing leads to another. He was really good today. I thought he was good anyway. Today’s a good day to pitch. Nick Green hit that ball as good as he can hit it. It was a good day to pitch.”

(On Saito) “It is really nice, gratifying, when you end up using the whole team. I know this isn’t Little League or Pony League but we used guys last night, we’ve been in our bullpen, we go to different guys on different days and when they have success I think it gives the club a lift. He was very excited.”

(On closing options) “I don’t know that we had a ton of options. We really wanted to stay away fron Oki, we knew we had Manny Delcarment probably to finish an inning. Ramon pitched in the eighth and we didn’t want to overuse him. That’s why Sammy’s here. He said he felt good after 17 pitches last night so it was an easy decision.”

“He felt real good when he went out this morning. Just taking inventory of where we are with everybody, we don’t want to overuse and underuse. We want to keep it balanced and win at the same time.”