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Red Sox break out of offensive funk, pound White Sox

Jul 21, 2007 - 3:52 AM BOSTON (Ticker) -- The Boston Red Sox woke up out of their offensive slumber in a big way.

Julio Lugo and Coco Crisp provided the big blows and Josh Beckett tossed six strong innings as the Red Sox pounded the Chicago White Sox, 10-3, on Friday.

Three relievers combined for three perfect innings and J.D. Drew returned to the lineup with a bang for Boston, which came into the game having lost three straight and eight of 11. The Red Sox pushed their lead over the second-place Yankees to eight games, their first gain on New York since July 5.

Lugo provided some insurance in the eighth with his first grand slam of the season that pushed the lead to 10-3 and ended the night for Chicago starter Jose Contreras.

Lugo had three hits on Friday to push his current streak to 10 straight games. Over that span, he is hitting .500 (19-for-38) with two homers and nine RBI, lifting his average from .189 to .225.

"This is a team that's going to go by feeling," Lugo said. "Today was a good sign. Everyone did the job, everyone contributed, our pitching was great. That's the way we've got to play."

Crisp hit a bases-loaded triple to put the Red Sox on top 5-3 in the third.

"It's just the way it goes," Crisp said. "Sometimes you're able to just put the ball in the right place where it falls in for an extra-base hit. For me, I'm able to stretch it out in some of those situations."

Crisp also made a spectacular play in the field, gunning down A.J. Pierzynski trying to stretch a single into a double to end the sixth.

"It always feels good," Crisp said of his play. "I take pride in playing defense. It helped Beckett out, he had a high pitch count right there and it hit off the wall and I was able to play the direction off of it right. It definitely feels good to actually throw somebody out."

"If he doesn't win a Gold Glove this year, I don't know what you've gotta do to win," Beckett said of Crisp.

Beckett (13-3) allowed three runs and four hits while issuing two walks and striking out a season-high 10 batters en route to matching Cleveland's C.C. Sabathia for the major league-lead in victories.

"Anytime you face a good lineup like that, you foul a lot of pitches off and 115 pitches in six innings is not what I'd qualify as a good game - but it was a great win for us," Beckett said.

"He's throwing everything 96, 97. He's got the fastball, changeup and that curveball, if he's on, he's pretty much unhittable," White Sox center fielder Jerry Owens said. "You just kind of hope to get one or two and hope to score some runs, and hope to get enough to win the game, but tonight it just didn't happen."

Contreras (5-12) lost for the eighth time in his last 10 starts, allowing all 10 runs and 10 hits in 7 1/3 innings. The veteran righthander has allowed at least five earned runs in six of his last 10 starts. The 10 runs allowed were a career high.

"He had a tough inning in the last inning and I talked to him (after the game) and thought he was pitching well and that's why I left him in in the eighth," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said of Contreras. "I think he threw the ball good against a good-hitting ball club."

Boston manager Terry Francona was ejected in the bottom of the first for arguing a botched call by the umpires. Tim McClelland, who Francona had a problem with on Thursday for what appeared to be a tight strike zone, was at third base on Friday and called a ball hit by J.D. Drew a double instead of a home run.

"To be perfectly honest, I really wasn't in a listening mood," Francona said of his argument. "I think I'm stating the obvious when I say that I was disappointed with the call. I'm talking ad nauseum about getting a two-out hit, this and that. To take two runs off the board, that's not easy to take."

Replays showed the ball hit on top of the wall and then struck a small wall in front of the "Green Monster" seats above the left field wall before bouncing back on to the field of play. A ball hitting in that spot is considered a home run at Fenway Park.

"The replay indicated that they did not rule on it correctly but the replay is from an angle that people down on the field do not have," said Mike Port, VP of umpiring for MLB, who was at the game. "So as the umpires would say, it is what it is and they are not happy about such mistakes and they regroup. They are very self-critical."

"That just happens," Francona said. "I'm very thankful we came back and played a great game after that because it doesn't really feel like you're going to end up smiling when you leave the field that early. Under those circumstances, our guys did a great job."

David Ortiz, who was on second base, came around to score. Manny Ramirez, who was on first base, was thrown out jogging home because he thought it was a homer. Instead of a 3-0 lead, Contreras and the White Sox were off the hook with a one-run deficit.

Jim Thome accounted for all three of Chicago's runs with a three-run blast to straight-away center field in the third inning.

The lone down point for the Red Sox was Ortiz, who strained his left shoulder sliding head-first into second base and had to leave the game.