Boston’s David Ortiz shows his frustration after striking out in the first inning last night in Chicago.

AP / Nam Y. Huh

CHICAGO — For seven innings, the Red Sox’ bats were stifled by Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle last night. When they finally showed a semblance of an offensive awakening in the eighth inning, it came too late.

Limited to three hits and no runs over the first seven innings, the Sox came up short against the White Sox, dropping a 5-3 decision.

When Buehrle yielded a leadoff single to Jason Varitek to begin the eighth, he was lifted after 110 pitches. Reliever Octvaio Dotel got the first out of the inning, but he walked J.D. Drew and gave up a three-run blast to Dustin Pedroia.

That brought the Sox to within a run and extended Pedroia’s road hitting streak to 27 games.

But the Sox offensive surge stopped there.

“We just didn’t seem to get anything going early,” Pedroia said. “We had nothing going against Buehrle. He was working so fast, (the White Sox) were back in the dugout in like two minutes. He was great tonight. He attacked the zone with, like, nine pitches, it seemed. He was tough. We hit a lot of hard ground balls, but right at them. That’s what he wanted.”

“That,” said manager Terry Francona in admiration of Buehrle’s outing, “was pitching. In and out, up and down. He used all of his pitches, changes speeds and worked quickly.”

Boston starter Jon Lester didn’t pitch badly, charged with four runs on six hits over seven innings. But without much early support, it was enough to see his seven-game winning streak halted. Lester suffered his first loss since May 25.

“I think I threw the ball a lot better than what the pitching line says,” Lester said. “I really just got out-pitched. There’s nothing more to say. I executed the pitches I wanted to execute. With the exception of the loss, I was pretty happy with the way I pitched.”

With Chicago up 1-0, the big inning against Lester came in the fifth, when the White Sox scored twice.

After getting ahead of Nick Swisher 0-and-2, he walked him, then gave up a single to center by Alexei Ramirez.

A sacrifice bunt from Juan Uribe moved the base runners into scoring position and Orlando Cabrera drove an opposite-field double to right, scoring both runners.

The White Sox tacked on another run in the seventh, when the Red Sox suffered something of a breakdown in fundamentals.

Cabrera had worked a two-out walk and A.J. Pierzynski roped a single to right. Drew made the cutoff throw to Pedroia, who in turn fired to shortstop Jed Lowrie as Pierzynski took too wide a turn at first.

But instead of worrying about Cabrera breaking for home, Lowrie began a rundown of Pierzynski. The Sox eventually tagged the catcher out, but not before Cabrera crossed the plate with the fourth run.

“It looked to me like [(Lowrie] saw [Cabrera] too late as he was breaking for the plate,” said Francona. “The priority was the play at the plate, but he didn’t see it soon enough.”

The White Sox tacked on an extra run in the eighth, when Carlos Quentin hit his league-leading 31st homer on the third pitch he saw from Manny Delcarmen.

“That changed the whole complexion of the ninth,” Francona said of the extra run.

After Lowrie reached after being hit by closer Bobby Jenks, the Sox had the potential tying run at the plate in pinch-hitter Sean Casey. But Jenks got Casey to ground to short for the final out.

The White Sox had scrapped together a run in the third on two singles and a sacrifice fly.

Uribe was aboard with a one-out single when the White Sox nicely executed a hit-and-run. As Cabrera shot a single into right, Uribe motored to third from where he easily scored on sacrifice fly to right from Pierzynski.

In Wednesday’s 8-2 win over the Royals in Kansas City, the Sox managed to score all eight of their runs with two outs. But when they tried to put something together in the fifth last night with two down, the inning quickly fizzled

Lowrie extended his hitting streak to seven games with a single to right and was then joined on base when Varitek worked a walk.

But Coco Crisp, who had produced the first run of the night in his first at-bat, popped weakly to second.

The Sox didn’t get so much as a base runner until there were two outs in the third.

Buehrle had retired the first eight in a row until Crisp, a lifetime .375 hitter against the lefty, swatted a double to right-center.

But the double was soon wasted when Buehrle got Drew on an inning-ending groundout.White Sox

5

Red Sox

3

Next Game

Tonight

at Chicago,

7:05 p.m.

smcadam@projo.com