All-star Mike Lowell homered and and J. D. Drew doubled twice propelling the Boston Red Sox (52-13) to a 7-5 victory over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (33-50).
Tim Wakefield (9-8) threw 6.1 innings picking up the win, giving up seven hits, four earned runs, two walks, two strikeouts and gave up one homerun.
With a combined nine hits from a lineup consisting of bench players including Alex Cora (1-3, with an RBI double), Doug Mirabelli (1-4, two RBI’s), and Jacoby Ellsbury (1-4, RBI and a run), the rag-tag Boston lineup gave all the run support Tim Wakefield needed to get the win.
Jonathan Papelbon pitched a perfect 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth to get his 20th save of the season.
Boston had two big innings, the first in the fourth, as Ellsbury drove home his first career RBI on a double to deep center with two outs in the inning. Mirabelli singled to right center bringing home Lowell and Ellsbury making it 4-1 in favor of the Sox.
The other big inning for the reserve Boston lineup came in the fifth as Drew doubled to left bringing home Cora, and Lowell homered to left scoring Drew giving the Sox a 7-1 lead.
Tampa Bay had a long inning of their own, but it was not enough only scoring four runs in the top of the seventh on a Carl Crawford two-RBI double and a two-RBI single by Carlos Pena bringing the game to a 7-5 score.
Three runs were charged to Wakefield in the inning as he left the game with the bases loaded and relief pitcher Javier Lopez let them all come in to score.
Edwin Jackson (1-9) picked up the loss only going 5 innings, on nine hits, seven runs, one walk, five strikeouts, and one homerun given up.
