BOSTON — Bartolo Colon allowed three hits and the Oakland Athletics capitalized on eight walks, two balks and two errors to beat the Boston Red Sox 13-0 in a rain-shortened seven-inning game Tuesday night.
The A’s broke a scoreless tie with six runs in the third when Seth Smith hit a two-run homer, then added two in the fourth, four in the fifth and one in the sixth as they snapped a four-game losing streak.
Colon (3-0) pitched all seven innings and had little trouble in the light-to-medium rain that fell throughout the game. He struck out seven and issued his first walk this season in 25 innings to Jacoby Ellsbury leading off the sixth. He allowed an infield single in the first by Dustin Pedroia and two-out singles in the fifth by Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Jonny Gomes.
Aceves (1-1) retired the first four batters then struggled before being relieved by Steven Wright with the score 8-0 with one out in the fourth. It was, by far, the worst performance by a Boston starter this season. In the other 19 games, starters allowed three or fewer runs 18 times and four runs once.
Oakland went ahead in the third when the first four batters reached base.
Eric Sogard walked, Coco Crisp singled and John Jaso and Smith walked, scoring the first run of the game. Aceves struck out Jed Lowrie before the inning got away from him.
Brandon Moss hit a two-run single, a balk put runners at second and third and a sacrifice fly by Josh Donaldson made it 4-0. Josh Reddick then hit a hard grounder that first baseman Mike Napoli stopped, but Aceves was late covering the base and Reddick was safe. Moss kept running and scored. And when Aceves’ throw home went wild for an error, Reddick took second.
Another balk sent Reddick to third and he scored on a throwing error by third baseman Will Middlebrooks on a grounder by Chris Young, making it 6-0.
The Athletics took an 8-0 lead in the fourth on Smith’s second homer of the year then added four runs in the fifth off Wright on a two-run double by Crisp and a two-run single by Jaso.
Reddick’s RBI double in the sixth gave Oakland a 13-0 lead.
The A’s finished with 13 hits after managing a total of 11 in their previous three games.
Notes: The stands were nearly empty when the game was called and the Red Sox announced that anyone with ticket stubs could use them to attend games Wednesday against Oakland or Thursday night against Houston. In the second home game of the year, the Red Sox’ sellout streak of 794 games in the regular season and 820 including the playoffs officially ended. ”¦ The Athletics started five former Red Sox players – CF Crisp, SS Lowrie, 1B Moss, RF Reddick and Colon. ”¦ RHP Wright made his major league debut. ”¦ In the finale of the three-game series on Wednesday night, Brett Anderson (1-3) pitches for Oakland against Jon Lester (3-0). ”¦ Ellsbury’s 12-game hitting streak ended.
