Devil Rays vs Red Sox (7/27-7/29)

Game 1: The Red Sox got a solid 6-inning performance out of Tim Wakefield on Friday night as he continued his mastery of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Red Sox were trailing 1-0 until the 5th inning when Kevin Youkilis cranked a 3-run homerun to give them the lead. The Red Sox would later pad the lead on RBIs by Coco Crisp, JD Drew, and Doug Mirabelli.

Manny Delcarmen pitched 2 scoreless innings out of the bullpen and Okajima pitched a scoreless 9th inning.

Game 2: Jon Lester pitched a decent ballgame on Saturday night as he gave up 4 runs in 6.2 innings. Lester left the game with a 6-4 lead which was held by Julian Tavarez and Hideki Okajima. Unfortunately, Jon Papelbon blew his 2nd save of the season by giving up a 2-run game tying homerun to Jonny Gomes. It was Gomes' 2nd homerun of the evening.

The Red Sox were able to get 2 scoreless innings out of Kyle Snyder before scoring 6 runs in the top 0f the 12th. Javier Lopez pitched the bottom half to end the game and give the Red Sox their 8th win in 9 tries.

Game 3: Daisuke Matsuzaka and Scott Kazmir engaged in a pitching battle on Sunday afternoon. It turned out that Matsuzaka was the first to crack. The first run of the game came off of a solo homerun by Dioner Navarro. Matsuzaka allowed another baserunner and was replaced by Manny Delcarmen who allowed 1 more baserunner followed by back-to-back homers to give the Rays a 5-0 lead.

Boston attempted to battle back in the top of the 8th when Manny Ramirez and Kevin Youkilis connected on back-to-back solo homers, but Gary Glover was able to close out the victory for the Rays.

The Red Sox now lead the Yankees by 8 games and will lead by that amount when both teams resume their schedules on Tuesday night. Boston will face Baltimore as the Yankees take on the Chicago White Sox.

On Deck: Boston will begin a 3-game series with the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday night. Josh Beckett will face Eric Bedard in the opener.