For most of the season, Victor Martinez has been a forgotten man. His bat hasn't really shown up and his defense is still somewhere slightly above Little Leaguer.
That all hopefully changed for the better last night as he went 5-for-5 with a MLB tying record four doubles, two runs and two RBIs and Boston (30-23) rallied to beat the Oakland A's (28-25) 9-4 at Fenway Park.
The opener of a three-game series was a strange one as it was delayed 20 minutes by rain and then John Lackey struggled out of the gate, leading to a 4-0 Oakland lead heading into the bottom of the fifth.
Daric Barton hit a two-run homer in the third while Jack Cust (RBI single) and Mark Ellis (RBI double) gave the A's the 4-0 advantage in the fifth.
Adrian Beltre (3 hits) started the comeback with a three-run bomb off Gio Gonzalez in the bottom of the fifth. It was a tie game as a run scored on Dustin Pedroia's double play ball in the sixth then Martinez put the Sox ahead for good with a ground rule double later in the inning.
Bill Hall had an RBI triple in the seventh then Boston tacked on three more in the eighth with Martinez smacking another ground rule RBI double, an RBI single by Kevin Youkilis and an RBI single by J.D. Drew.
Lackey improved to 6-3 but in his six innings, he gave up four earned runs on twelve hits with two walks and four strikeouts. The bullpen work of Manny Delcarmen (7th), Daniel Bard (8th) and Joe Nelson (8th) was stellar as they combined for three scoreless innings, only one walk and three strikeouts.
Things figure to slow to a crawl tonight as the oft-injured Ben Sheets takes on Dice-K.
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