No-No on the Back Bay

No more than eight months after Clay Buchholz threw the 17th no hitter in Boston Red Sox history, Jon Lester tossed the 18th tonight against the Kansas City Royals. He's also the first lefty in half a century to accomplish the feat for the Sox as well. Also a statistic of note, this is only the second time in Royals history they've had a no hitter thrown at them. You have to go back to within the first five years of the franchise in 1973 when Nolan Ryan pitched one for the California Angels.

Lester ended up walking only two batters in the entire game, which included a ninth inning walk Esteban Herman who managed to find his way to third base via a pair of ground outs to third thanks to Tony Pena Jr. and to first by David DeJesus. Lester ended the game with his ninth strike out of the night against Alberto Callapso.

Hopefully tonight will serve as a confidence booster for the young lefty, as his start to the season has been a little inconsistent at times. Now with Buchholz on the DL, the Sox are going to have to rely on Lester a bit more while Dice-K and Josh Beckett shoulder the main responsibility in the rotation. Something Beckett has struggled with as well through the first 50 games.

Not to be outdone tonight and over the weekend's sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers, the offense is lighting things up after returning home to Fenway. The Sox have scored 30 runs in the past four days and lead the AL with 253 runs. They also happen to be the only team in the AL currently flirting with .600 as well. It hasn't been taken care of by your usual cast of characters, even though Ortiz is starting to get his act together a bit while Lowell is finding his groove after returning from the DL.

Go down any list of stats for the Sox at the moment and you'll find that the only two everyday players batting above .300 are Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia and Manny Ramirez. Do I think more than three should be? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not quite so naive as to think you'll have a lineup with four of five hitters above .300, but last year did spoil us all a bit. Youk and Manny are pulling down amazing numbers besides what they are batting for average as well with an OPS of 1.003 and .920 respectively. Manny is still sitting at 498 and may not get to 500 at home while playing against a Royals staff that, for the most part, has been pretty solid the first month and a half.

The Sox will get to enjoy three more games against the Royals at home before getting out on the road for a normally sticky West Coast trip. Boston will set up shop in Oakland for the weekend before traveling up the coast to play the last place Seattle Mariners. After the trip the Sox will travel cross country the weekend after to play a four game series with Baltimore.