By Morris Phillips

he A’s got hit with the triple whammy on Saturday: John Lester’s outstanding pitching, Jonny Gomes’ big blast with the bases loaded and a healthy dose of Boston/Fenway magic.

Enough to do in the AL West leaders for sure, but a ninth inning rally had the Boston fans and Red Sox’s dugout plenty nervous, showing that the A’s don’t concede without throwing a flurry of late punches. Still the A’s fell for the second straight day, 6-3 at Fenway Park.

“It’s easy to just cash it in after you’ve struck out 15 times in eight innings and hadn’t had too many good swings and you’re frustrated.   And then to get those kind of at-bats in the ninth inning,” manager Bob Melvin said.

The A’s hadn’t experienced much adversity on the road in 2014 coming in. By winning 12 of their first 16 road contests, the team had performed exceptionally, taking the lead of its stellar starting pitching throughout. But a visit to the Green Monster–the home of hair-trigger offense–combined with starts by Dan Straily and Tommy Milone, the A’s struggling fourth and fifth starters, has a resulted in a pair of tough losses.

If nothing else, the two contests clearly show where the A’s will need improvement if they want a third straight season to extend into October. Straily and Milone are a combined 1-5, while the A’s top starters—Scott Kazmir, Sonny Gray and Jesse Chavez—are 10-1.

With the A’s batters having their hands full with Lester, Milone was effectively done after Gomes’ grand slam in the first inning. Milone walked leadoff batter Dustin Pedroia and third place hitter David Ortiz. Then after he struck out Mike Napoli, Gomes-the former Athletic—took Milone over the Green Monster for an early 4-0 lead.

Ortiz blasted the 436^th home run of his career leading off the third to give Boston a 5-0 lead.

Meanwhile, Lester was rolling with his assortment of hard stuff on the corners, with the high fastball giving him an effective out pitch. The three-time World Series champ struck out all nine A’s starters at least once and got Josh Reddick for a hat trick. When he wasn’t striking A’s hitters out, he was still recording outs, getting Craig Gentry to hit into an inning-ending double play in the fifth.

Speaking of hat tricks, the Fenway crowd proved multifaceted by cheering loudly for each of the three goals in the Bruins big rally in the final six minutes of their win over Montreal in the second round of the NHL Playoffs across town.   The Bruins trailed 3-2 late before the big rally carried them to a 1-1 tie in their best-of-seven series.

The A’s late rally came after Lester called it a day after eight innings and 15 strikeouts. The first four hitters reliever Chris Capuano saw reached, allowing the A’s to score twice.   Closer Koji Uehara was summoned and he was initially shaky, walking Yoenis Cespedes to load the bases. But Uehara recovered, getting Derek Norris to ground into a run-scoring, fielder’s choice, striking out Alberto Callaspo and getting pinch-hitter Brandon Moss to fly out to end it.

The A’s figure to be far more competitive throughout the entire nine innings on Sunday when Sonny Gray (4-1, 1.76 ERA) gets the start. The young right hander will face ageless veteran John Lackey, looking to beat the A’s for the 20^th time in his career that began in 2002 in Anaheim.