Scutaro and Lackey to the rescue

These are strange days at Fenway Park and with the Boston Red Sox in general. The team claimed former star Johnny Damon off waivers from the Detroit Tigers yesterday but he has 48 hours to make his decision.

In the mean time, the Red Sox (72-54) won their third straight and moved a season-high 18 games over .500 with a 6-3 win at Fenway over the Seattle Mariners (49-76) last night.

John Lackey (12-7) submitted one of his best performances of the season, against Seattle once again. He almost no-hit them in July at Safeco Field. Last night in the cold and rain, Lackey went eight innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on six hits with two walks and a season-high 10 strikeouts.

Marco Scutaro continued his injury-plagued but fine season, driving in a career-best four RBIs.

The Mariners went up 1-0 in the third on an infield single by Chone Figgins (3 hits, stolen base) and an error by Jed Lowrie.

Scutaro's first two-run single put Boston up 2-1 in the fifth inning and then J.D. Drew (2 hits) made it 3-1 with an RBI single.

Doug Fister (4-9) held the Red Sox in check for the first few innings but then he unraveled thanks to his crappy stuff and even worse defense behind him.

He went 6.1 innings, allowing five runs (two earned) on six hits with a walk and six strikeouts. Ryan Langerhans dropped a pop fly in left that bounced into the stands for a ground-rule double.

Casey Kotchman tied it at 3-3 in the sixth.

Scutaro was money in the seventh with a two-run single and Victor Martinez pushed another run across with a sacrifice fly.

Jonathan Papelbon gave up a hit but struck out two in the ninth for his 31st save.

Josh Beckett takes on former Sox youngster David Pauley tonight as Boston tries to keep the good times rolling.

The Yankees lost last night but the Rays won so the Red Sox trail both teams by 5.5 games.

Okajima lets his stinkbomb speak for itself

Just when it appeared the Red Sox were gaining a sliver of momentum, winning the first two games in Seattle, it all came crashing down as they couldn't pull out a win in Lester's gem on Saturday night and yesterday afternoon the bullpen imploded for the millionth time this season.

Seattle (39-60) won 4-2, to earn a split in a series that Boston (55-44) simply had to have. Now, the Sox are eight games behind New York (goodnight) and five behind Tampa Bay for the wild card (keep dreaming). Ugh.

Yesterday's goat was Hideki Okajima (3-3), who had another terrible outing in a terrible season for him that's been chock full of them.

Dice-K had given his team the standard six inning outing: four hits, one run (earned), five walks, four strikeouts. Typical with Matsuzaka, he pitched out of trouble well (including a bases loaded, one out jam) but his high pitch count (110) cost his team since someone other than Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon had to enter the game.

Okajima entered with no outs and a runner on first in the eighth and promptly gave up five hits for two runs (both earned). You have to believe me that none of the balls were hard hit, two were bunt hits, but that doesn't matter at all. He compounded things by screwing up one of the bunts, he fielded Casey Kotchman's (3 hits) bunt, turned to third, hesitated then threw to first. Everybody was safe.

Jose Lopez (2 hits) gave the Mariners a 1-0 lead in the third with an RBI single.

Kevin Youkilis (2 hits) tied it up for Boston with an RBI double in the fourth and ex-Mariner Adrian Beltre put the Red Sox ahead with an RBI single.

In the fateful eighth, Michael Saunders drove in two with a bloop single and Kotchman scored on Milton Bradley's bunt.

David Aardsma, another ex-Red Sox player, got a 1-2-3 ninth for his 18th save.

After a 3-4 stretch in Oakland and Seattle, the Sox wrap up their west coast trip with three in Anaheim against the Angels. Clay Buchholz takes on Joel Pineiro, former Sox bum.

Stop the presses: Angels win a game and stave off elimination

The Boston Red Sox had a perfect opportunity to put away the Anaheim Angels last night in game 3 of the ALCS but the Angels survived by winning 5-4 in 12 innings.

Big game ace Josh Beckett was not his usual dominant self as he labored through five innings of work. He gave up four runs (all earned) on nine hits with four walks and six strikeouts.

Out of all the Angels' bats, catcher Mike Napoli would never be considered the most feared Anaheim hitter. Yet last night he came through when his team needed it the most. He hit two homers off Beckett and added another hit, driving in three and scoring three runs on the night.

Anaheim led 1-0 in the first as Beckett walked Juan Rivera with the bases loaded.

Boston responded with three gift runs in the second as Erick Aybar and Torii Hunter let a Jacoby Ellsbury pop up fall between them, scoring three runs.

Angels starter Joe Saunders had bad numbers but it wasn't his fault since his team made that terrible mistake. He went 4.2 innings, giving up four runs on five hits with four walks and two strikeouts.

Napoli tied it at three in the third with a two-run homer then put Anaheim ahead in the fifth with a solo shot.

Kevin Youkilis' RBI double scored Ellsbury in the fifth before the bullpens surprisingly both pitched six shutout innings in a row.

I lost track of how many times the Sox relievers escaped trouble in the top of the inning, only to see the hitters fail to produce the walk-off hit that would clinch the series.

Aybar was the other unlikely hero in the win as he made his first hit of the series count. He knocked in Napoli with an RBI single of Javier Lopez.

Jered Weaver got the win as he pitched two scoreless frames.

The teams get back at it tonight in game 4 as Jon Lester faces John Lackey, a rematch of game 1. Boston faces pretty much a must-win as it can't go back to Anaheim after choking away two chances to end this against a clearly frazzled team.

Fitting time for a day off, hopefully it's filled with Thai hookers

Well this has gotten ugly fast, eh? The Boston Red Sox' 2008 season is going down faster than a line of coke at a party in Hollywood.

The Angels (67-40) embarrassed the Sox one last time at Fenway, 9-2 last night to sweep the series and take eight out of nine against Boston (61-48) this season.

Left-hander Joe Saunders (14-5) joined Cliff Lee, Brandon Webb and Aaron Cook as the only 14-game winners in MLB. Saunders went six innings, allowing two runs on five hits with three walks and two strikeouts.

Sox starter Josh Beckett (9-8) had a disastrous outing as he allowed eight runs (seven earned) on 11 hits in 5.1 innings with eight strikeouts and a walk.

Vlad Guerrero (2 hits, run, RBI) started it off with an RBI single in the fourth. Garret Anderson-who has absolutely killed the Sox this year-added a two-run single to make it 3-0 in the fourth. Anderson finished 4-for-5 with four RBIs.

Boston's only sign of life was provided by Coco Crisp as he knocked in Jason Varitek with a two-run homer over the monster in the fifth.

The Angels scored five runs in the sixth to knockout Beckett and the Sox. Anderson had a two-run bomb that just wrapped around Pesky's Pole. Jeff Mathis had an RBI double. Mathis scored on Jed Lowrie's error and Maicer Izturis knocked in Chone Figgins (3 hits, run, steal) with a sacrifice fly.

Torii Hunter (2 hits, 3 runs, RBI, walk) homered in the ninth off Justin Masterson.

Boston has today off and the Oakland A's come to town tomorrow night for a three-game set. Hopefully everyone can get away from Fenway for the day and try to regroup. The Red Sox are three games behind the Rays and only a game ahead of the Yankees.

Tampa Bay has yet to add a bat-which is imperative-but the Yankees have made two great trades in the last week. First they got Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady from the Pirates in exchange for four minor-leaguers and then yesterday they traded Kyle Farnsworth for Pudge Rodriguez. With those, they addressed a bunch of needs: lefty reliever, outfielder, catcher.

Today is baseball's trading deadline and the Manny Ramirez rumors have reached a fever pitch. Last night, there were reports that there was a three team deal that would send Manny to the Marlins and Pirates outfielder Jason Bay and reliever John Grabow to the Red Sox.

Despite Manny's latest verbal assaults yesterday, claiming that the Red Sox "don't deserve a player like me," I think they'll realize they can't get enough value in return and keep him around for the rest of the season. The question is if he's going to stay interested and not bail out on the team in the middle of a pennant race? In a perfect world, everything will work itself out and Manny will decide to play for Boston the rest of the season. Otherwise, pick up his option in the offseason and trade his ass.