Red Sox Spoil Peavy's Homecoming Behind Two Home Runs

It was a feel-good moment for Jake Peavy before tonight's ballgame at the historic Fenway Park as the Boston Red Sox recognized the two-time champion for his role in capturing Beantown's eighth World Series title in 2013.

Unfortunately for the San Francisco Giants, their first game in Boston in three years wasn't so warm and fuzzy.

The orange and black's post All-Star break woes continued in the first game of a four-game East Coast road trip, as a pair of home runs from Brock Holt and the Red Sox living legend David Ortiz sunk the Giants in their fourth straight loss.

Peavy, pitching at Fenway Park for the first time since being traded to San Francisco in 2014, was in the zone early on, retiring the first eight hitters.

Holt ended Peavy's shortlived perfect game aspiration, launching a 3-2 challenge fastball into Boston's right field bullpen, on "Pet Brock" night no less.

In the following inning, Dustin Pedroia drew a walk and Xander Bogaerts singled, setting the table for Ortiz, who turned a first-pitch fastball into his 23rd home run of the season.

Despite the four runs, Peavy by no means had a bad outing as the veteran struck out six over six innings while limiting the Red Sox to only three hits and the one walk. Unfortunately for Peavy, two of those hits were of the round-trip variety.

Boston only got four runners on base while Peavy was on the mound, but all four of those runners turned into all four of the Red Sox's runs.

The Giants certainly had their chances to get into the run column early on in the game, putting at least one runner on base in seven of nine innings, including three in which they got the leadoff batter on base.

Even with a constant duck on the pond, San Francisco was unable to come up with a single run.

There was a platinum opportunity for the Giants to put up a crooked number right from the jump, as Denard Span and Angel Pagan opened up the ballgame with a pair of singles to set the table for the beef of the lineup.

Rick Porcello didn't limit the damage, but evaded the damage all together with style, striking out Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, and Brandon Crawford back-to-back-to-back.

Those strikeouts were the only ones Porcello had on the night, but they were by far the biggest.

Span and Pagan tried to spark the Giants with a pair of multihit games, but the bats fell quiet leading to another frustrating loss.

Play on both sides of the ball has been stagnant for the orange and black since game on of three in San Diego.

Since play resumed, the starting rotation has a 6.55 ERA, but that only tells half the story.

Home runs have been the rotation's Achilles heel, as Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, and Peavy has each given up two home runs in their first starts since returning to regular season play.

The lumber has fallen silent as well, as the San Francisco offense has only scored 2.5 runs per game with a .197 batting average and while only totaling three hits in 27 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

For all the bullpen has received, especially with Santiago Casilla's balk-off in San Diego, the unit as a whole has been the most stable component of the Giants, only allowing three runs post All-Star break

That trend continued tonight as Javier Lopez, a former champion from Boston's 2007 World Series, and George Kontos held the Red Sox scoreless in each of their innings of work.

The work of the bullpen can only carry the team so far, and the starting rotation and offense is going to have to find a way to break its current cold spell going forwards.

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For as cold as San Francisco have been following the Mid-Summer's Classic, tonight's loss seemed bound to happen before Porcello threw the first pitch of the game, as the Giants have yet to win a game at Fenway Park in 104 years.

That last win came back in Game 7 of the 1912 World Series, but that win did not notch them a championship because Game 2 of that series ended in a tie.

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