Quintana flirts with no hitter, beats streaky Red Sox 3-1

Slump, funk or dump - Jacoby Ellsbury is mired in one of the former, and fans are screaming for the latter, Tuesday night's dribbling single to break his slump notwithstanding.

And that hit?  One of just four produced from Red Sox bats against the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night, Pale hose left-hander Jose Quintana taking a no hitter into the seventh inning as the south siders took a second consecutive game from the Red Sox 3-1...

David Ortiz holds the handle of his broken bat...

...and it took a bit of luck for David Ortiz to break up the no hit bid as Quintana sawed him off, half of Big Papi's bat tumbling around the infield while the ball found the dead space between short and left field - the first of three consecutive singles that chased Quintana in favor of Jesse Crain, who struck out Will Middlebrooks and Stephen Drew to preserve the shutout...

...manager Robin Ventura should have left him in for the eighth, but chose to lift him in favor of Matt Thornton, who promptly walked Jarrod Saltalamacchia and gave up Ellsbury's dribbler - which was enough for Ventura to quickly pull Thornton for Matt Lindstrom, who fell victim to his own wildness and an error by shortstop Alexei Ramirez to give up a cheap run, ruining the shutout.

Even though he took the loss, Red Sox starter Felix Doubront took another step toward cementing a permanent spot in the rotation, tossing six innings of five hit ball, his lone blemish a Jeff Keppinger two run bomb with two out in the fifth.

"Not even one mistake, just I threw a good pitch," he said. "A good hitter put a good swing on it and hit it out of the ballpark."

So the maddeningly streaky Red Sox seem to have hit another rough patch with their offense, while the equally streaky White Sox have been able to put together small rallies that have been enough against suddenly light hitting (again) Boston, game hero Keppinger summarizing it best:

"Our starting pitching's really good," Keppinger said. "Every game, we're in it. We have a chance. It's just a matter of if we can get that big hit - or get that big two-out hit. It seems as of late, we've been getting a lot of two-out hits that are turning into runs."

Hey, that sounds like the Red Sox before they hit Chitown...