Laugher was the best medicine

As the late, great Mel Allen would have said, ''How about that!"

It's kind of obvious, but we needed this," said Boston manager Terry Francona. ''Not as much the win, but to have the time to take a breath."

After four stinging losses, capped off by a messy setback Friday night, the Red Sox were relentless and merciless in this one, banging out at least one hit in every inning while batting around twice. Edgar Renteria, who has lifted his average 42 points in less than a week, had the game's biggest blow, a first-pitch fifth-inning opposite-field grand slam off Paul Quantrill, who was then called upon to take one for the team (seven hits, six earned runs while giving up the grand slam, a three-run homer to Trot Nixon, and a two-run shot to Jay Payton, all in just 2 2/3 innings). The Renteria wallop, his fourth lifetime granny, made it 9-0, which, even allowing for the recent shakiness of the Sox bullpen, put this one out of reach.

It was a Red Sox day from the second pitch of the contest. Johnny Damon jumped on a Carl Pavano offering and smashed it off the fence in right-center, missing a home run by a foot or so. Renteria bunted him over to third and David Ortiz brought him home with a sacrifice fly. A 1-0 lead seemed pretty nice at the time.

Damon had no way of knowing he'd get to the plate six more times. But this would turn out to be a day in which even Mark Bellhorn, the No. 9 man, had six at-bats. The Red Sox had the astonishing total of 57 plate apperarances against four Yankees pitchers, each of whom was reached for at least three hits and three runs. In order, Pavano was bad, Mike Stanton was terrible, Quantrill was woeful, and Buddy Groom was horrible.