The Red Sox kept it close and held a lead early 2-0 after the third. The lead would soon be lost in the top of the 4^th however thanks mainly to a Royal homerun. Boston’s 3 runs came off of 8 hits in the game. Dustin Pedroia was able to hit his 15^th homerun of the season in the losing effort. The loss was credited to Boston pitcher Josh Beckett who gave up the 4-run fourth. His record now sits at 9-4 this season.

The Royals got 7 hits total including the big homerun by Billy Butler in the fourth. The hit was Butler’s 10^th homerun this season. Pitcher Luke Hochevar got credit for the victory while Joakim Soria came on to get the save. The win was Hochevar’s 7^th while Soria added his 19^th save.

The following day, on July 29^th, Boston continued to struggle offensively leading to another loss. The loss this time was a 3-1 battle against the White Sox in Chicago. With these two losses, Boston is now 64-40 on the year and need to get some help offensively to stay in the race for the division. Wakefield started for Boston, but was out-dueled by Chicago’s Gavin Floyd.

Boston got 3 hits in all and their lone run came from a Jarrod Saltalamacchia homerun in the third. The homerun for Jarrod was his 9^th of the year and came off Floyd. This was the only hiccup Floyd ran into on the day, however, as he cruised the rest of the game. The loss got credited to Boston’s Tim Wakefield who moves to 6-4 on the season.

The White Sox Floyd pitched great giving up just the one homerun in the third. The victory was his 9^th of the year as he moves to 9-9 this season. Sergio Santos came on late to clean things up and close out the game to get his 22^nd save of the season. White sox catcher AJ Pierzynski also added his 5^th homerun of the season on the day.

The two teams will meet again tomorrow and are set to play some close games as they are evenly matched ball clubs. Both need victories to stay in their respective AL races. Tomorrow’s match-up is at 7:10 PM ET and will feature some evenly matched pitching. The Red Sox will start 10-4 Lester who brings a 3.23 ERA to the rubber. Chicago will start Humber who is 8-6 with a 3.27 ERA. The Red Sox simply have to get more from the plate to compete and have been inconsistent in the past couple of games. A recent trade for a certain Astro seems to have some at a perfect time.