BOSTON — J.D. Drew extended his hitting streak to eight games last night.

And that was a very big deal, because the Red Sox right fielder was the only member of the team to get a hit last night against Seattle right-hander Felix Hernandez.

Drew swung at Hernandez’s first pitch of the eighth inning and bounced a hard, clean single up the middle, breaking up the no-hitter.

Drew generally is one of the game’s most patient hitters, but he had seen enough of Hernandez’ stuff to know patience wasn’t necessarily going to be rewarded on this night.

“At some point you have to say when you get behind in the count against the guy, ‘He’s pretty nasty, so let’s see what we can do (earlier in the count),’ ” said Drew, who hit a fastball away.

“I wasn’t going to be overly aggressive, but I wanted to be aggressive with anything around the plate,” he said.

Drew now is batting .393 (11-for-28).

Lester looking good

The news on Jon Lester keeps getting better.

The lefty pitched four shutout innings Tuesday night in his second start for Class-A Greenville. Lester gave up three hits and a walk and struck out five. He has yet to allow a run in eight innings. He has struck out 10.

Lester did what most 20-somethings do these days when they want to tell someone what is happening. He sent a text message to Francona to fill the Sox manager in.

“I told you, he’s the best texter in the game,” Francona said. “He texted me this morning. He’s begging for more innings.”

Lester, who is coming back from cancer, will be allowed to go five innings in his next start. Francona said the organization has a plan in mind on how to deal with Lester, although he will not discuss it until he has spoken to Lester about it.

“His velocity is up a little bit,” Francona said. Lester hit 93 mph, close to his high before his illness, in Tuesday’s start. “As of now he has two more starts in Greenville before we revisit it,” the manager said of any plans to promote Lester.

As long as he wins

While the Sox are still learning about Daisuke Matsuzaka, and vice versa, at least one issue with the team’s new pitcher seems to have been settled.

In Japan, Matsuzaka did all he could to go the distance. In his eight seasons with the Seibu Lions, he started 204 games and completed 165. He was not afraid to throw 150 pitches, if needed.

In the majors, no one throws that much. The Red Sox are not going to have their $103-million investment risk injury with such work.

“He’s been trained to throw nine innings, but also have an extra day (of rest),” Francona noted.

Matsuzaka is being allowed to do some things his way. For one, he throws more between starts than other pitchers. Also, his warmup routine before games is a bit unusual. Last night, he spent the first five minutes after coming on the field for his pregame warmup doing extensive calisthenics. Then he threw long toss for another seven or eight minutes before beginning to throw in the bullpen. Overall though, he is adjusting to the methods used in the United States.

“He understands,” Francona said.

Around the bases

Francona reported that Mike Timlin came out of his first work since coming off the disabled list (he allowed two runs in the ninth inning Tuesday) feeling fine. The fact that the team was able to get Timlin some work when the game was not on the line was the ideal way to get him back into action, the manager said. … Jason Varitek celebrated his 35th birthday yesterday. … The plan with J.D. Drew is to give the outfielder, who has had major health issues in the past, a day off every 10 days or so, Francona said.

pkenyon@projo.com