14 of 21 Games Decided By 1 or 2 Runs

The Red Sox have won six of their last eight games -- and every victory has been by a single run. That hasn't happened since May 30 to June 9, 1943.

Boston may be 6-2 since April 20, but they have outscored their opponents by only two runs (47-45) in those games. Overall, they have scored 97 and allowed 114 (most in the AL) for an expected record of 9-12 (actual record: 10-11). Those six one-run wins are the most in MLB.

Eight of the Red Sox's 10 wins have been by one or two runs -- and more than half of their losses (six of 11) have been by similarly slim margins....

Clay Buchholz calmly worked out of trouble in the eighth inning last night. ... Batters are swinging and missing at a huge number of Buchholz's pitches, including a whopping 15.2% of pitches thrown inside the strike zone.

Brandon Puffer Redux?: Fabio Castro returned to Pawtucket after spending one night in the Sox bullpen and another lefty, Alan Embree, will join the team today. Infielder Kevin Frandsen was DFA'd to make room on the 40-man roster.

Castro is listed at 5-7 and before the game he stood back-to-back with Dustin Pedroia. When FY was told he was a little bit taller, he called Castro "my favorite [reliever] of all time".

Tim Wakefield threw a bullpen session yesterday and will likely not pitch in relief until Friday, at the earliest. ... Mike Cameron and Jacoby Ellsbury both took swings at a batting tee on Tuesday; Cameron might do some light running by the end of the week.

The Red Sox tied a franchise record for most runs scored in a one-run victory in which they did not hit a home run. That's slicing it a bit thin, but there you go. It happened twice before: May 5, 1934 against the Browns and May 18, 1950 against the Tigers. Both of those games were also 13-12 scores!

That 1950 team scored a 1,027 runs -- 113 more than the second-best team. They averaged 6.7 runs per game; check out the scores on June 7 and 8!

Monday night was also the first time the Sox had as many as 18 hits without a dong homer since beating Toronto (also at Skydome) 11-9 on July 27, 1999.

The UZR fielding stat was tweaked recently to deal with odd outfield configurations, like Fenway Park and Jason Bay's 2009 performance in left field vastly improved. Instead of costing the team 13.8 runs, Bay actually saved the team 1.9 runs. Jacoby Ellsbury also improved, but not as much, from -18.3 to -10.2.