Sox Win, Rays Lose

The 2nd half of August is turning out to be pretty good as the Sox win for the 5th time in 6 tries over the Chicago White Sox 4-3. The Tampa Bay Rays lost to the Oakland A's last night by the same score 4-3 moving the Red Sox lead to 3 1/2 & 2 in the loss column. Maybe we should start paying attention to the A's as AL contenders in the playoffs. Ryan Dempster was greeted to cheers by the Fenway crowd in his 1st appearance since the A-Roid HBP. Dempster was solid through 6 1/3, but then ran out of gas. Tazawa finished the 7th, but was ineffective in the 8th. Frank Morales got a big out in the 8th on Adam Dunn on just one pitch. Then Farrell took Morales out in favor of Koji to get the final 4 outs - which he did. Good move by Farrell since Morales can be wild & the game was too close. David Ortiz breaks out of his slump with a seeing eye ground ball through the shift, good for 2 RBI. Mike Napoli takes a bases loaded walk for a big RBI. And Shane Victorino kept his hot bat alive with 2 more hits. All in all, another good win to start this series.