In front of a crowd of 35,191, the team's 53d straight sellout this season, the Sox won for the first time at home since the July 31 trade that sent Garciaparra to the Cubs.
"You've got to get hits when they're needed," said Kevin Youkilis, who delivered a two-run double in the sixth, the last of five straight Boston hits (and a walk) that broke a 3-3 tie. "We've had a couple of games this year where we've had 13 or so hits and scored two runs. Today we strung together hits with two outs."
Despite the return of the Sick One, Manny Ramirez (three whiffs and a long fly out), the Sox went 12 up and 12 down through the first four innings against converted reliever Jorge Sosa. But they struck for three runs in the fifth in a rally touched off by David Ortiz's single, the first of four hits in the inning, plus an RBI ground out by the heir to the Garciaparra position (if not fortune), Orlando Cabrera.
The Devil Rays struck right back in the sixth with Rocco Baldelli's two-run triple, one of three hits by the son of Rhode Island, but the Sox answered with a five-spot touched off again by Ortiz, who lined a two-out single to right. Kevin Millar walked, and Jason Varitek, whose double the previous inning had knocked in Boston's first run, lined a single to right to break the tie.
Cabrera, who entered the game batting .206 (7 for 34) in his American League incarnation, floated a single to left to score Millar, making it 5-3 and knocking out Sosa.
"He's been trying too hard," Francona said of Cabrera. "He didn't scald the ball, but that had to have helped."
Bill Mueller blooped a run-scoring single off reliever Bobby Seay to make it 6-3, and Youkilis followed with his two-run double, high off the wall in left-center, to make it 8-3.
"That was huge," said new first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who was hitless in four trips while batting in the No. 2 hole for the first time this season. "Give Papa Jack [hitting coach Ron Jackson] credit. He said if we could get this guy [Sosa] in the stretch, we were going to get him.
"And two-out rallies always seem to hurt a team a little more."
