Boston starting pitcher Jon Lester zeroes in on his target during the fourth inning of last night’s game against the Yankees. Lester was on top of his game and pitched a complete-game shutout en route to his seventh win of the season. He is now 4-0 with a 2.38 ERA over his last six starts.

MCT / Paul J. Bereswill

NEW YORK — There was a popular bumper sticker back in the 1980s that could be found on almost every Escort, Cutlass and Datsun 210.

Well, Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia used it in paraphased form to describe Boston’s recent woes.

“It happens,” he said prior to last night’s game at Yankee Stadium.

What Pedroia was referring to was the club’s recent five-game losing skid in which absolutely nothing went the Red Sox’ way in every aspect of the game. His point was that it’s a long season and even the best of clubs will have its peaks and valleys. The true test is how a team battles that adversity. .

And, there’s no better place than the Bronx in the first week of July to make positive things happen once again.

That’s exactly what the Red Sox were able to do here last night en route to a 7-0 victory over the Yankees.

Boston received a much-needed solid starting performance by Jon Lester, who registered a complete-game shutout in which he allowed only five hits. More important, the southpaw’s outing gave the taxed and struggling bullpen a rest.

Of the five hits Lester surrendered, the Yankees’ Melky Cabrera and Robinson Cano had two each. Derek Jeter had the other one.

Lester is now 4-0 with a 2.38 ERA over his last six starts.

From one left-hander to another, the Yankees’ Andy Pettitte wasn’t sharp.

He worked only 4 2/3 innings and allowed six runs (five earned) on nine hits with three walks and only two strikeouts. It was his first loss since May 17, a stretch of eight consecutive starts without a loss.

“He was outstanding,” said Pedroia of Lester. “Those guys [on the Yankees] offensively — they are so explosive. They can manufacture runs and they can do it all offensively, so for him to pitch a game like that for us was huge. Hopefully we can get another one [today from Josh Beckett].”

Before the game Francona said the club needed to win last night “bad” and it needed to “bounce back.”

“It’s unrealistic you’re going to go through a year not having ups and downs,” he said. “The downs aren’t much fun. How you handle that is the real important thing.”

The Sox gave Lester a 4-0 cushion after two innings. That seemed to raise the club’s confidence level and it went on its way to register its first victory in almost a week.

Boston played a little bit of small ball and it paid off.

“We actually did some things that we didn’t do the last couple of days,” said Francona. “We got a bunt down, Jason Varitek gives himself up to move the runner and the next pitch we got a sac fly. We did some good things like that to score first and spread it out. Then Jon took over from there.”

Boston added a run in the fourth and another in the fifth for a 6-0 advantage, one New York could not respond to.

Just for good measure Varitek snapped a 0-for-19 slump with an RBI single in the top of the eighth inning to give Boston a 7-0 lead.

“It was great,” said Pedroia. “We put runs together and did the little things to score runs. That’s huge. I looked up in the seventh inning and Mike Lowell was 1-for-1 with a walk and sacrifice fly. Julio’s (a pair of sacrifice bunts in the second and fourth innings) first official at-bat was in the sixth. That’s what it takes to win ball games and those guys did a great job. It was just a great game for us.”

This first game of the series didn’t have your typical Red Sox-vs.-Yankees feel to it. For the first time in a long time, neither club is in first place in the A.L. East at this time of the season. And, both clubs desperately need to get on a roll.

For the Red Sox’ sake, it was probably better this game was a little more low key.

“We look at it like we look at every other series,” said Francona. “There hasn’t been a series since I’ve been here that we haven’t looked at that’s important. Whether it’s in Boston, New York, Tampa or Houston — they’re all important. It’s part of the fun about being associated with the Red Sox and Yankees because every game means so much to us. I can’t see that changing in the near future.”

The Red Sox were looking, hoping and waiting for something good to happen here in the Bronx.

It happened.

Next Game

Today

at New York

1:05 p.m.

jmcdonal@projo.com