updated 8:40 p.m. ET Oct. 13, 2008

BOSTON - Jon Lester sped through his perfect first inning with just four pitches. Then he gave up four runs in the third.

The ace-in-the-making was the ace in a hole.

Lester and the Boston Red Sox never climbed out of it Monday against Matt Garza, who had gotten second billing in the matchup of emerging pitching stars but earned postgame plaudits for his six-plus innings.

The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Red Sox 9-1 and took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven AL championship series. Lester was simply beaten — badly.

“At times I was effective with everything, but I didn’t execute, for the most part, two pitches and they hurt me,” Lester said.

B.J. Upton smacked a fastball down the middle of the plate in the third inning for a three-run homer, clearing the Green Monster, the seats behind it and three billboards high above the street. Two batters later, Evan Longoria pounced on a cutter high in the strike zone and hit a solo homer that cleared the 37-foot high wall, with left fielder Jason Bay remaining largely in place.

“When you leave pitches out over the middle of the plate like that to good hitters, they’re supposed to do what they did,” Lester said. “I didn’t stay away from a big inning.”

And it happened in his own stadium.

Lester was 11-1 at Fenway Park this season, including a no-hitter May 19 against Kansas City, and 16-6 overall with a 3.21 ERA.

But the big left-hander was touched for five runs and eight hits in 5 2-3 innings after pitching 14 innings in his first two postseason games this year without allowing an earned run. That followed 5 2-3 scoreless innings in Game 4 of last year’s World Series when the Red Sox completed a sweep of the Colorado Rockies.

“It certainly wasn’t his sharpest outing,” Boston manager Terry Francona said.

Lester tacked on two more innings without an earned run, giving him a streak of 24 2-3 in the postseason.

The Rays grabbed a 1-0 lead when Longoria scored on Jason Varitek’s passed ball in the second, and Lester, at his best when he puts his 95-plus mph fastball in just the right spot, was way off target in the third.

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Jason Bartlett led off a with a single, Akinori Iwamura doubled and Upton homered before Lester struck out Carlos Pena for the first out. But Longoria went deep to give Tampa Bay a 5-0 lead.

“Three-run homers are nice to get. We were very fortunate,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “But I have a lot of respect for him. This is one of the better young left-handed pitchers in the league.”

Lester allowed four earned runs and two homers in the third, a dramatic drop from his career postseason totals of two earned runs and one homer in 25 2-3 innings through the second inning against the Rays.

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“You’ve got to take advantage of his mistakes,” Upton said. “You can’t let him get away with it. Today we didn’t let him get away with it.”

One of Lester’s problems was clear: an inability to retire the leadoff hitter.

He retired the leadoff hitter in his first 15 innings this postseason, including two seven-inning stints in the AL division series against the Los Angeles Angels. But the next four leadoff hitters reached base — Longoria on a walk in the second, Bartlett on his single in the third, Dioner Navarro on a single in the fourth and Upton on a single in the fifth.

Lester held the Rays scoreless in the fourth and fifth then retired the first two hitters in the sixth. But after walking Rocco Baldelli, he was replaced by Paul Byrd after 96 pitches.

“He settled in,” Varitek said. “We made some (pitch) selection errors. I’ll take the blame for that. And they did a good job of hitting”

Lester’s struggles came after Josh Beckett, a postseason star until this season, allowed eight runs over 4 1-3 innings in Boston’s 9-8 loss in 11 innings that evened the series Saturday night.

“A loss is a loss,” first baseman Mark Kotsay said, “whether it be Lester, Beckett or anybody else on the mound. Every loss matters.”

Now the Red Sox turn to Tim Wakefield, dominant when his knuckleball is darting around the strike zone but vulnerable when it spins predictably.

“We feel pretty good about everything right now,” Lester said. “Obviously, tonight’s tough (but) we got Wake tomorrow.”

And, if the series goes seven games, Lester in the finale.

“I feel all right, not the best I’ve ever felt,” he said. “Hopefully, we get a chance to do it again in Game 7. And, hopefully, I’ll be able to execute pitches then.”

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