Jed Lowrie is Today's Hero

Bottom of the 1st, it looked as if the Sox pitching staff was still working Toronto BP as Dice-K gave up a long ball to Vernon Wells with one on. 'Huh boy, it's gonna be another long night', I thought . The Sox answered with 4 runs in the top of the 3rd. Despite allowing 5 runs on 8 hits, Dice-K only issued 1 free pass today, and had a relatively low pitch count as well. The 2 teams alternated leads only to come up tied at 5 apiece at the end of the 9th. Masterson and Okajima put in 2 innings and only allowed 1 hit and 1 BB. Papelbon pitched 2 scoreless innings, but only threw 16 pitches. Jed Lowrie is today's hero, hitting a solo shot in the top of the 11th to give the Sox the go ahead run.

Because of his low pitch count, I was wondering if Tito was going to send Pap out for a 3rd inning, but out came Manny Delcarmen instead. I could hear the groans 3000 miles away, but he got the job done today. The BJ's made him work for it, though, as he needed 26 pitches to get through the inning and earn the save.

Meanwhile in Chicago, the other Sox also went into extra innings to beat the Rays by the same 6-5 score. The Red Sox are now 4.5 GB the Ray's as they head next to the Big Apple and their last visit to Yankee Stadium.

Sox win 6-5 BOX SCORE