At the risk of (once again) offending the legion of John Lackey supporters out there, the Red Sox offense covered up another "just OK" performance by the right-hander last night. Hey, the facts are the facts. After falling behind 3-0 in the first, Lackey was immediately rescued by back-to-back jacks by Ellsbury and Pedroia.The inevitable double-digit run total was achieved later on Papi's ninth career grand slam—which also resulted in his 1,000th Red Sox RBI. The Sox ended up winning, 12-5.
Lackey ended up going 5 2/3 innings, giving up 11 hits and 3 earned runs—including two home runs. I don't know, are we way out of line for suggesting that this is probably not 5 year/$82.5M territory?
To the anonymous reader who gets upset with our Lackey criticisms: please send in your defense and we will gladly publish it under your name.