Notebook | Boston's J.D. Drew smashes home run and pitcher Sean Green's streak

BOSTON — Home runs and Sean Green don't exactly go hand-in-hand.

In fact, the Mariners sinkerball reliever had given up only one home run all season before Sunday afternoon's game against the Red Sox. He hadn't yielded a long ball on the road in over a year, dating to May 8 of last season.

That changed in a hurry on Sunday as J.D. Drew drilled a Green offering over the wall in center field to give Boston the game's decisive run.

"Usually, I get guys to hit the ball on the ground, but he got a good piece of bat on it," Green said. "He's been hot."

Drew has four home runs during an eight-game hitting streak. His eight home runs this season represent a total he didn't reach until his 126th game of last season.

"The timing has been just about perfect," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said of Drew picking up the pace for a Red Sox team missing the bats of injured regulars David Ortiz and Jacoby Ellsbury. "I mean, he's seeing the ball really well."

Green had gone 19 straight outings without a homer — since Brian Roberts of the Baltimore Orioles took him deep at Safeco Field on April 24. Before that, his last long ball allowed came on Aug. 15 of last season against Torii Hunter, then with the Minnesota Twins.

The last road blast he'd surrendered was against Gary Sheffield of the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park in the pitcher's second outing of the 2007 season.

Drew's homer on Sunday barely cleared the wall in one of the deepest parts of the ballpark. This wasn't a case, though, of Green thinking the ball might be caught by an outfielder.

"Not when it came off the bat," he said. "I was hoping it would hit the wall. But it went out. Not by much, but when you hit it out there, you got it pretty good."

Notes

• Richie Sexson went hitless the final two games of the series after collecting three singles in Friday's opener. But Sexson did hit a pair of balls hard on Sunday and would have come away with at least one RBI had Drew not made a leaping catch of his line drive to right center with two on in the second inning.

Sexson also flied out to right field to end the game.

"Definitely one for sure," Sexson said of runs he might have knocked in, if not for Drew's catch. "I hit that last ball better but the wind kind of died down."

Sexson had some of the better at-bats against Boston rookie Justin Masterson, who went six innings and has allowed three hits or fewer in three of his first four starts. He has gone six or more frames in his first four career appearances, the seventh Boston pitcher since 1956 to accomplish the feat.

"He did a good job," Sexson said. "He's got good movement. He's deceptive. He can throw a pitch in any count. The deception part's [is] what gets you. It's not the velocity."

• Sunday's loss was the eighth in the last nine road games played by the Mariners. They have dropped 15 of their last 17 away from home.

• The Mariners fell to 2-23 on the season when scoring fewer than four runs. They are 20-18 when scoring four or more.

• Seattle failed to notch its first series win in Boston since 2001. After taking four of six games at Fenway Park that year, the Mariners have since dropped 17 of the last 23 games played here.

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com

For the record

Streak: L2

Home: 14-18

Road: 8-23

vs. AL West: 10-14

vs. L.A.: 3-6

vs. Oakland: 3-2

vs. Texas: 4-6

vs. AL East: 6-16

vs. AL Cent.: 4-10

vs. NL: 2-1

vs. LHP: 4-12

vs. RHP: 18-29

Day: 7-14

Night: 15-27

One-run: 5-13

Extra innings: 2-2