FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) – Jon Lester’s spring trainings keep getting better.

After two camps in which the Red Sox severely restricted his number of pitches, the left-hander is being treated as a full member of the rotation. On Wednesday, he improved on a bad first outing by allowing one run in three innings in Boston’s 7-6 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.

“It’s great,” Lester said. “All I’ve asked from day one is just to be treated like everybody else and get an opportunity. Two years ago was tough, just because I was healthy and they still had restraints on me, but it was in my best interest.”

Last spring, Lester was coming back from cancer treatments that ended the previous December. The team wanted him to regain his strength and brought him along slowly. Then he pitched only 12 games during the regular season.

But in the clinching game of Boston’s sweep of Colorado in the World Series, he started and allowed three hits in 5 2-3 scoreless innings.

Lester allowed five runs on two hits and four walks in one inning of his first exhibition start.

“There was nothing wrong mechanically” then, he said. “You see somebody other than your own team for the first time, you’re more amped up. That could have resulted in me being a little erratic.”

Cincinnati’s starter, 21-year-oild Homer Bailey, allowed two runs on five hits in three innings Wednesday.

“He had a good breaking ball,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said. “He had good mound presence. He gets better every time out. That’s what you want to see, the progression.”

Boston took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the second on Kevin Cash’s two-run single off Bailey, who escaped a first-and-third, one-out jam in the third.

“Like Dusty said, every game you should be a little bit better,” Bailey said. “It’s that gradual progression that I’m trying to get.”

Cincinnati went ahead 6-2 with five unearned runs in the sixth, resulting from a throwing error by third baseman Keith Ginter, who replaced Mike Lowell to start the inning. An ineffective Javier Lopez couldn’t make up for that.

Lopez, competing for a spot in the bullpen, allowed five hits, including a three-run triple by Andy Phillips, and walked one and hit one of the 10 batters he faced in the inning.

Notes:Jolbert Cabrera went 2-for-3 with two RBIs for Cincinnati. … SS Julio Lugo (stiff back) and CF Coco Crisp (groin injury) missed the game for Boston. They also could sit out Thursday’s game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. … Minnesota LHP Francisco Liriano is scheduled to make his first spring training appearance Friday against Boston. He missed the entire 2007 season while recovering from elbow surgery. … Manny Ramirez, Alex Cora, Joe Thurston and Ginter had two hits each for Boston, which outhit Cincinnati 17-9.