Am I the only one who is SO tired of talking about last place?

Daisuke Matsuzaka, in search of his first win of 2012, pitched a beauty last night giving up just one run in 5.2 innings and struck out five. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the W, but the team did. The bullpen posted yet another brilliant performance keeping the Jays scoreless for the remaining 3.1 innings with a combination of Scott Atchison, Andrew Miller, Vicente Padilla and Alfredo Aceves. Despite his strong outing, Dice K told reporters after the game the has more work to do.

“We ended up winning the game, so I’m really happy about that,” Matsuzaka said through a translator. “I do have to give credit to myself to holding them to one run in the first inning. Other than that, I need to go deeper into the game to be more satisfied with my pitching. … I’m not satisfied with the way I pitched today.”

Padilla struck out two batters in the eighth inning. Honestly, I’m surprised anyone even steps into the batter’s box against this guy. He scares me. And not just because he has a reputation for beaning guys. He just looks mean. Like if I get a hit, he’s going to pull a machete out of his sock and hack me to death on first base. I’ll just take the K, thankyouverymuch. *shivers* Glad he’s on my team.

Jays’ pitcher, Aaron Laffey, really shut down the Red Sox line up allowing them only three hits over six innings. Obviously, they were elated to see him not come back out for the seventh inning and promptly welcomed his three replacements that inning by putting up a three spot on the scoreboard. Jarrod Saltalamacchia got the scoring started with a two-out, solo home run. Pinch hitter Ryan Kalish then doubled, PH Daniel Nava was hit by a pitch and Mike Aviles walked to load the bases for Dustin Pedroia. Pedroia didn’t let me down, shooting a ground ball up the middle for a base hit scoring Kalish and Nava but Aviles was caught in a rundown for the final out.

After Padilla showed the Jays who was boss in the top of the eighth, the Sox decided to tack on a couple more. David Ortiz doubled, Cody Ross singled and Adrian Gonzalez smashed a wall-ball double to center to score Ortiz. Will Middlebrooks, who had a rough night at third, finished off the scoring with a sac fly to score Ross.

Aceves pitched a one-two-three ninth. Game over. Sox win. Bye-bye last place once again.

Clicky here for all the good stuff box score, courtesy of the Red Sox. They finish off their three-game set with the Jays this afternoon with Jon Lester (4-5, 4.48) taking on Ricky Romero (8-1, 4.34). This is an interesting match-up — they have nearly identical stats but their records are worlds apart.

Injury Update: Clay Buchholz has been diagnosed with esophagitis which is an inflammation of the esophagus. Ouch. However, Clay is suffering from an erosion of his esophagus which is what caused his internal bleeding. Double ouch. I’m wondering if the 15-day DL is going to be enough to come back from this. In other news, Jacoby “Fra-geeee-lay” Ellsbury is starting a rehab assignment in Fort Meyers this week as the DH. Really? REALLY? Whatever happen to the initial “oh, he’ll be out probably 4-6 weeks report”? Did they really mean 4-6 months? Tape a friggin’ asprin to your stupid sublexed shoulder and get your ass back to Boston. I’m going to start calling him JD Ellsbury.

Oh, Felix Doubront, why have you forsaken us?

The phenom from the back end of the Red Sox rotation gave up a career-high seven runs against the Toronto Blue Jays last night.  Doubront went six innings in the 9-6 loss, which was punctuated by a two-hour rain delay and a four-run first inning for Toronto.  With the loss, the Red Sox fell back into a tie with Toronto for fourth place – a.k.a., last place – in the AL East.

Fenway Park (Amanda Laws)

The runs piled up quickly for Doubront in the first inning – Brett Lawrie singled and Cody Rasmus hit a home run to right field to kick things off.  The Will Middlebrooks Era began with a fielding error from its namesake that let another Toronto runner on (a “Yyyyooouuuukkkk” cheer came up from the crowd – welcome to the spotlight, Will!) before a double, a single, and a muffed double play scored two more Toronto runs.

The Red Sox got two of those runs back in the bottom of the first: Dustin Pedroia got on and got himself to third base, and David Ortiz cleared the right-field fence to bring the deficit to two.  Toronto tacked on another run in the top of the second, before the Sox scored two more to stay within one in the bottom of the third inning (Middlebrooks flew out to right with runners on first and third, drawing more “Youk” cheers – jeez, how quickly the tide turns in Boston).

Boston tied the game up at five in the fourth inning, but that didn’t last – Toronto’s J.P. Arencibia, the ninth hitter in the order, hit a huge two-out two-run home run over the Monster and into the Sports Authority sign to give the Blue Jays a 7-5 lead.  Toronto extended that lead to 9-5, before the skies opened up and the rain, thunder and lightning took over for a good hour and a half (yours truly had to walk the dog during this time, which was a blast for both of us).

After the rain delay ended close to midnight, Ortiz hit a solo home run to bring the score to 9-6.  But that’s as close as the Sox would get to a late-night/early morning comeback.

So, that was kind of a disappointing game, with a disappointing box score, courtesy of the Red Sox.  Doubront had a night he’d probably like to forget, and Middlebrooks didn’t exactly start his big league starter career with the best output.  The Sox will try again tonight, when Daisuke Matsuzaka (0-2, 6.06 ERA) takes on Aaron Laffey (0-0, 3.00 ERA), who is making his first start of the season.