G103: Red Sox 7, Tigers 3

Tigers  - 101 000 100 - 3  6  1
Red Sox - 200 002 12x - 7 10  1

Clay Buchholz (8-5-3-2-4, 108) turned his third consecutive strong outing and Dustin Pedroia and Will Middlebrooks each hit a two-run homer. The Red Sox have gained three games in the East standings in three days, and now trail the Yankees (who lost to Baltimore 5-4) by 8.5 games.

Austin Jackson hit Buchholz's second pitch of the game for a home run, but the Red Sox quickly took the lead. Jacoby Ellsbury walked in the bottom of the first and scored on Carl Crawford's triple to left-center (the carom eluded Jackson and rolled towards center field). Dustin Pedroia's grounder to shortstop scored Crawford, giving Boston a 2-1 lead.

Detroit tied the game in the third, but Boston went ahead for good in the sixth when Crawford walked and Pedroia homered over the Wall. Kelly Shoppach tripled to start the seventh and (after catching his breath) scored on Ellsbury's single. In the eighth, Adrian Gonzalez singled and Middlebrooks lined a missle into the Monster Seats.

Gonzalez and Jarrod Saltalamacchia each had two hits. Pedroia drove in three runs.

This is the Red Sox's first three-game winning streak since June 19-21.

Also, Ryan Sweeney punched a wall after his eighth-inning at-bat and will have x-rays taken.

Max Scherzer / Clay Buchholz

Ellsbury, CF
Crawford, LF
Pedroia, 2B
Gonzalez, 1B
Middlebrooks, 3B
Saltalamacchia, DH
Sweeney, RF
Shoppach, C
Ciriaco, SS

Buchholz has allowed two or fewer runs in six of his last eight starts, with a 2.47 ERA since May 27. ... Scherzer and Buchholz faced each other on April 8, the third game of the season, a crazy and maddening game the Tigers won 13-12 in 11 innings.

The rest of the series:

Tuesday: Justin Verlander / Josh Beckett
Wednesday: Rick Porcello / Aaron Cook

Bobby Valentine says "it's about time to put the pedal to the metal". Adrian Gonzalez says the team has two months of playoff baseball left. Good old Cool Standings has the Red Sox (51-51) at 5% to win the division (best of the non-Yankee teams in the East) and 17% to win one of the wild cards.

The Red Sox have explored the idea of trading both Beckett and Ryan Sweeney.

David Ortiz is eligible to come off the disabled list on Wednesday, but his return will likely be delayed.