Jon Lester only gave up a run, but couldn't make it past five innings. (AP)

Alfredo Aceves and Daniel Bard are indeed human.

The pair of Red Sox relievers had a combined 22 consecutive scoreless innings – 12 1/3 for Aceves, 9 2/3 for Bard – entering Thursday night, but then the duo allowed three runs between them in the seventh inning en route to a 4-2 Yankees win at Fenway Park.

After striking out Nick Swisher to start the seventh, Aceves, the usually ultra-reliable longman in the Boston bullpen, walked Andruw Jones in an epic 14-pitch at-bat and then plunked rookie DH Jesus Montero before handing the ball over to Bard in a 2-1 game. The fireballing setup man then allowed a long double to right-center off the bat of Russell Martin that scored both inherited runners and gave New York a 3-2 lead. The Yankees extended that lead in the next at-bat when pinch-hitter Eric Chavez singled in Martin.

Aceves earned the loss, his first since May 31 and his first as a reliever since May 26, 2009 when he was with the Yankees. He moves to 9-2 on the year and 23-3 in 103 career games.

The bullpen implosion spoiled a strong, albeit short, pitching performance from Jon Lester (5 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K). Lester’s outing was his second-shortest of the year – a four-inning start on July 5 was cut short by a lat strain – after he was lifted prior to the sixth, having thrown 113 pitches.

The blame for the loss doesn’t fall squarely on the shoulders of the Red Sox pitching though. The Boston offense couldn’t scrape together more than just a pair of runs against Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett (5 1/3 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K) who was coming off an August in which he had an ERA of 11.91 for the month.

Adrian Gonzalez had a chance to win or tie the game in the ninth inning with the bases loaded and two outs but instead struck out against Yankees closer Mariano Rivera to end the contest.

The game lasted four hours and 21 minutes, making it the longest nine-inning game of the season for the Red Sox. (The Yankees played one nine-inning contest last week in 4:31.)

With the win, the Yankees (82-53) won their first series against Red Sox this season(83-53) and move half a game behind their rivals in the AL East standings. Boston owns the season series 11-4 in 2011 with he two teams set to play three more times in New York from Sept. 23-25.

Here’s what went wrong (and right) in the Red Sox loss:

WHAT WENT WRONG

-Aceves hit two batters on the night, Montero and Mark Teixeira who later left the game with a bruised right knee because of the HBP. Aceves has now hit 11 batters this season, which puts him in a tie for third-most in the American League. Every AL pitcher with more than 10 plunks has at least 136 innings pitched. Aceves has only 90 1/3 frames under his belt in 2011.

-Although the outing on the whole was a good one, Lester was kept from making it a great one by a 43-pitch first inning. That total was the highest for any one inning in Lester’s career, beating out a previous high of 34 set against Baltimore exactly one year ago Thursday. In particular, he was done in by Swisher and Jones, who had 10- and nine-pitch at-bats respectively out of the five and sixth spots in the lineup. (Swisher eventually struck out while Jones walked to load the bases.) Also, Lester threw strikes on the first pitch to only three of the seven batters that inning and 12 of the 25 batters he faced in the game.

The fact that Lester left the bases loaded in the first frame while taking the longest route possible to strike out the side is perhaps a sign for optimism about the starter. But the Sox certainly wouldn’t have minded if he could have spread out his pitches a little better, especially given the way the bullpen self-destructed in the seventh.

-Josh Reddick’s Thursday performance perhaps gave a glimpse as to why the Red Sox acquired outfielder/first baseman Conor Jackson the night before. Reddick finished 0-for-4 on the night and is now 6-for-43 (.140) dating back to Aug. 16. In his 16 games (11 starts) over that time, the young Sox right fielder has driven in just one run.

-In fact, Red Sox 6-9  hitters (Carl Crawford, Jed Lowrie, Reddick, Jarrod Saltalamacchia) were a combined 0-for-12 with a walk and four strikeouts Thursday.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

-David Ortiz smacked a single for the Red Sox first hit of the game in the second inning and extended his hitting streak to 15 games in the process. During the streak, which is the second-longest of Ortiz’ career behind a 19-game streak in 2002 for the Twins, the Red Sox designated hitter is 28-for-56 with seven home runs and 16 RBI.

-Dustin Pedroia’s bomb to center in the fourth inning gave him a new career-high for dingers in a single season with 18. He hit 17 homers in his MVP-winning season of 2008. He also stole a base in the sixth to extend his career-high in that category to 25.

-Lester allowed exactly one run for the fourth straight start to give him a 1.50 ERA over that span. It is his second-best four-game streak of the season behind a stretch from June 30-July 30 when he held a 1.11 ERA, although there were 20 days between starts two and three as Lester recovered from a lat strain.

-Felix Doubront struck out Robinson Cano and Swisher in his 1 1/3 scoreless innings of work. The lefty was the lone September call-up for the Red Sox and was pitching for the big club for the first time since April.