G44: Red Sox 12, Mets 5

Mets    - 013 010 000 -  5  8  0
Red Sox - 030 032 40x - 12 16  0

With the win today and losses by the Yankees and Blue Jays, here are the updated AL East standings:

            W   L   PCT    GB   NEXT
Red Sox    26  18  .591   ---   at Min
Blue Jays  27  20  .574   0.5   at Bal
Yankees    25  19  .568   1.0   at Tex
Rays       23  23  .500   4.0   at Cle
Orioles    18  26  .409   8.0   vs Tor

Every starter had at least one hit and scored one run, except David Ortiz, who went 0-for-5 (now batting .195). ... Drew had four hits, Lowell and Kottaras had three, and Pedroia had three walks to go with his single.

Manny Delcarmen threw two excellent innings of relief, allowing only a two-out double in the eighth (K, 3U, 5-3; K, 4-3, 2B, 4-3). Takashi Saito pitched a perfect ninth (5-3, 3U, K).

Sox 7th: Singles from Kottaras and Green (5 hits from those two guys today). An ill-advised bunt from Ellsbury forces Kottaras at third. Pedroia smashes a single to left for a run. Ortiz pops to short left (0-for-5). Yook hits a first-pitch, three-run dong to deep left.

Wakefield: 6-7-5-4-3, 94. Only three outs recorded by the outfield.

Sox 6th: With one out Pedroia walks. With two outs, Youkilis walks, Bay singles to center to score FY, and Drew doubles to right (he is 4-for-4), bringing in Yook.

Sox 5th: With two out and no one on, the Sox attack. Drew singles to right, Lowell singles off the Wall, Kottaras doubles to right-center (his second double of the day), scoring one run, and Nick Green pokes a two-run single to right, then gets caught in a 9-3-6-4-5-3 rundown.

Sox 2nd: Bay walk, Drew double, Lowell three-run HR to left. Later in the inning, Ellsbury doubled to extend his hit streak to 19 games.

***

Game back on at 2:24 PM.

1:48 PM: Rain delay in the bottom of the first (large hail-like drops).
Wakefield allowed a single and a walk to start the game, but got Beltran to GIDP 4-6-3 and struck out Sheffield. In the Boston half, Ellsbury lined out to center, Pedroia walked -- and the tarp came out.

***

Tim Redding (3.00, 146 ERA+) / Tim Wakefield (3.59, 136 ERA+)

Before heading out on a ten-game road trip to Minnesota, Toronto and Detroit -- the longest trip of the season -- it would be nice to avoid a sweep and grab a win.

I'm asking politely.

MLB.com:

Making his season debut after missing six weeks with a strained right rotator cuff, Redding gave the Mets a fine outing last Monday in Los Angeles: six innings, two hits and two runs. ... In two career starts in Boston, he is 0-2 with a 12.72 ERA, while the Sox have hit him at a .414 clip.

Those two games came on June 14, 2003 and July 15, 2005 (1-4-6-4-2, Red Sox beat the Yankees 17-1), so take them with a quarter-grain of salt. (NL guys like Drew and Bay have faced him most often.)

That doesn't mean he isn't a chump, though. He is -- and the Sox should pound him into pulp.

The Red Sox and Yankees -- both at 25-18 -- trail Toronto by 0.5. ... Phillies/Yankees at 1:00 and Blue Jays/Atlanta at 1:30.