Red Sox bats wallop Tribe

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

Boston’s offense helped Jon Lester put a halt to his losing streak.

Lester struck out 12 over six innings for his first win in six weeks and the Red Sox cranked out 16 hits in routing the Cleveland Indians 14-1 Sunday to salvage a four-game split.

“A laugher and we needed it,” manager Bobby Valentine said. “The guys had a good time.”

Adrian Gonzalez hit a two-run homer and two-run double. Carl Crawford had three RBIs and three of Boston’s seven doubles. Mike Aviles had three hits and scored three runs.

Best of all, Lester (6-10) earned his first win since beating Toronto on June 27. Between wins, he was 0-5 with a 7.49 ERA.

“It’s nice to win,” said Lester. “My confidence never strayed. I knew my stuff was there. I had to keep telling myself that.

“Scoring all those runs helps,” he added. “It takes pressure off me to try and be perfect.”

Boston built a 6-1 lead against Corey Kluber (0-1) and scored its most runs since hammering Miami 15-5 in an interleague game June 20.

“We sure hit a lot of balls in the gap,” Valentine said. “I liked it. I liked it a lot.”

Lester was on cruise control with the lead. He gave up three hits and one run to move to 5-1 lifetime against Cleveland though Boston won for only the fourth time in 12 games.

Cleveland is 3-2 after falling from contention in the AL Center with 11 straight losses.

“It was catch-up baseball from the get-go,” Indians manager Manny Acta said. “It’s not fun at all when you come to the plate and you’re down by five runs.”

Lester threw his fastball on both sides of the plate and mixed in a sharp curve. Reliever Josh Tomlin, dropped from the rotation on July 31, will have his right elbow examined in Cleveland and will not make the Indians’ trip that begins today in Los Angeles. He didn’t pitch last September due to a sore elbow and admitted Sunday he had not told Acta that it’s bothered him for more than a month.

It was the eighth time since the All-Star break that Cleveland gave up 10-plus runs. The Indians are 9-21 and their starting rotation has a 6.71 ERA over that stretch.