Brett Anderson continued his amazing start for the Oakland A’s, throwing eight scoreless innings in front of his home crowd to defeat the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night, 5-0. The Red Sox have had an amazing start in their own right, though for far different reasons, and they dropped to 5-11.

The A’s struck first, scoring a first-inning run off Boston starter John Lackey with some small ball. Coco Crisp singled, stole second, moved to third on a ground out, and scored on another ground out. Just like "Moneyball!" As it turned out, it would be the only run Oakland would need behind Anderson.

Lackey had his best start of the young season for the Red Sox, going six innings and allowing only the Crisp-manufactured run. Lackey walked one and struck out three, throwing 93 pitches. The game was a taut, 1-0 affair until the eighth inning, when the wheels fell off for the Boston bullpen. Dan Wheeler allowed a leadoff double, and he was replaced with Hideki Okajima. How bad was Okajima?

That about sums it up. Okajima got two outs, but allowed the inherited run to score before giving three runs of his own. The offensive outburst removed any temptation Bob Geren might have had to send Anderson back out for the ninth inning.

The series continues tomorrow, with Clay Buchholz pitching for Boston and Gio Gonzalez going for Oakland.

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