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Matsuzaka, Ortiz lead Red Sox past White Sox

Aug 10, 2008 - 4:41 AM By Rory Spears PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

CHICAGO (Ticker) -- Daisuke Matsuzaka and David Ortiz combined to hand the Chicago White Sox a costly loss.

Matsuzaka went eight strong innings and Ortiz drove in three runs as the Boston Red Sox beat the White Sox, 6-2, on Saturday.

The defeat comes at a high price for Chicago (64-51), which lost righthander Jose Contreras to a ruptured left Achilles tendon in the second inning and lost its lead in the American League Central to the Minnesota Twins (65-51), who defeated the Kansas City Royals, 7-3.

"This is a sad day," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. "Jose will be out for a long time, maybe even a year. He will have surgery in a couple days, I just hope he can come back and pitch again."

Matsuzaka (13-2) allowed one run and four hits while walking three and striking out four to earn his team-leading 13th win. The Japanese righthander completed eight innings for the first time this season while allowing two earned runs or less for the 15th time in 20 starts.

"I wanted to come out and pitch a good game and make sure our team didn't lose two games in a row," Matsuzaka said through an interpreter. "The team helped me a lot with good defense and some double plays."

With the victory, Boston (67-50) pulled to within three games of AL East-leading Tampa Bay (69-46), which plays at Seattle later Saturday.

Contreras came off the 15-day disabled list before the game and was making his first start since July 13 after being sidelined with right elbow tendinitis.

The ruptured Achilles occurred in the top of the second inning when Boston's Jacoby Ellsbury hit a two-out grounder to White Sox first baseman Nick Swisher. After fielding the ball, Swisher flipped it towards Contreras, who was running to cover first base.

Before he could catch Swisher's throw, Contreras collapsed near the base and stayed down until being assisted off the field.

"It just looked like he slipped," White Sox catcher A. J. Pierzynski said. "Then he grabbed his Achilles and that wasn't a good sign. The worst part was that it seemed he was back throwing the ball, where he needed it to be and was healthy again. His velocity was up and he had a good split. We were counting on him for the stretch."

"It's very unfortunate situation," Ellsbury said. "I know he just came back off the DL, he was covering the bag and looked like his Achilles simply went out on him."

The White Sox broke through against Matsuzaka in the fifth to take a 1-0 lead when Orlando Cabrera's one-out single scored Swisher.

Boston forged a tie in the sixth off righthander D.J. Carrasco, who replaced Contreras, when Jason Bay hit into fielder's choice that plated Ortiz.

Chicago brought in lefthander Boone Logan (2-3) to start the seventh. Logan allowed the first six Red Sox batters to reach base. After an RBI single by Dustin Pedroia, Ortiz broke the game open with a bases loaded double off the left-center field wall that increased the lead to 5-1.

"I thought the ball was gone," Ortiz said. "Papi knows when a ball is gone, but Mother Nature just didn't want me to hit it out tonight."