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Ortiz homers as Red Sox top Rangers

Sep 8, 2008 - 12:15 AM ARLINGTON, Texas (Ticker) -- David Ortiz snapped a 19-game homerless drought with a two-run blast and Paul Byrd pitched 6 2/3 scoreless innings to lead the Boston Red Sox to a 7-2 win over the Texas Rangers on Sunday.

Coco Crisp scored two runs and Jason Bay added a solo homer for the Red Sox (84-58), who moved to within 1 1/2 games of the Tampa Bay Rays (85-56) in the American League East Division while pushing their wild card advantage over the Minnesota Twins (78-65) to 6 1/2 games.

Ortiz's 18th blast in the fifth gave Boston a 4-0 lead. The slugger drove an 0-2 pitch from Brandon McCarthy deep over the right field wall, ending a drought that matched his longest since joining the Red Sox prior to the 2003 season.

Ortiz, who missed 45 games earlier this summer due to a partial tear of the tendon sheath in his left wrist, blamed the power drought on a lack of luck and the fact that the wrist is still bothering him.

"I've had zero luck and have been swinging poorly, simple as that," Ortiz said. "My hand is still bugging me once in a while. It's the same clicking but there's no pain. If there was, I wouldn't be playing. It's off-and-on, it feels good and then the clicking comes back. You try not to think about it, but it's hard."

After allowing 15 runs and 16 hits in a loss on Saturday, Byrd (11-11) got Boston's pitching staff off to a better start Sunday, allowing three hits and walking three while striking out four to post his fourth consecutive win.

The righthander is 4-1 since being traded to the Red Sox and is 8-1 with a 2.61 ERA since the All-Star break.

"I'm a fly ball pitcher so this park is not normally a good park for me to pitch in," Byrd said. "Today, though, I was able to throw my sliders inside and out working both sides of the plate. I kept the ball down a little better today and I think some of the hitters had a little trouble picking it up."

Boston jumped on top in the second when Jason Varitek stroked a two-out single off McCarthy (1-1) and came around to score on Alex Cora's triple. Coco Crisp followed with an RBI single to push the lead to 2-0.

"A big key for us is to get runs from the bottom of the lineup," Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek said. "You want to get runs from as many different people as you can. I'm glad I could contribute today, and Coco has been fantastic of late."

Crisp has been on fire, batting .500 (23-for-46) with 13 runs scored in the past 13 games.

"Coco's been terrific," said Boston manager Terry Francona. "He's been extremely aggressive at the plate and on the bases. He broke up a double play in the the sixth inning, which was big. Anytime you extend an inning and give your team another shot, it's huge."

After Ortiz's blast in the fifth, Boston added two more in the sixth on back-to-back RBI singles by Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia. Bay's homer in the seventh completed the Red Sox's scoring.

Boston returns to Fenway Park Monday to begin a three-game series against Tampa Bay.

"We're really excited to play them," Francona said. "We've played ourselves into a position where these three games are really important and right now we feel really good, as a team, about the way we're playing."

Rookie Taylor Teagarden hit his third homer in the eighth for Texas, which managed one win in 10 games against the Red Sox this season.