Tavarez's comments were somewhat surprising, as Ramírez has missed nine of the last 10 games with patellar tendinitis in his right knee. After the game, manager Terry Francona announced that Jason Varitek will catch and Trot Nixon will play right field tonight against the White Sox, but he made no mention of Ramírez.
The Sox also expect David Ortiz to possibly return by tomorrow, since he has had no further episodes of heart palpitations.
``I saw [Ramírez] do some running today and I asked him, `Are you going to play tomorrow night?' " said Tavarez, one of Ramírez's closest friends on the team. ``He said he wanted to play [yesterday] but that they wanted to make sure he was 100 percent. He wants to play. He will. I guarantee it."
Tavarez said he believes tonight's game could be ``the start of something exciting here. We're getting our guys back. We're 6 1/2 games out [7 in the loss column] of the wild card and I've seen teams over the years get hot in September and make the playoffs. We can make it happen if we have our guys back."
The Sox did miss a golden opportunity to pick up ground in the wild-card race, with Chicago and Minnesota losing.
The Red Sox, who have been pretty pathetic offensively since the beginning of August (they hit .234 with runners in scoring position in the month and have started September 1 for 12) managed barely a pulse against Chacin, who held the Sox in check for six innings.
A pair of ninth-inning doubles by Mike Lowell (who was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple) and Peña marked the first two times the Sox reached second base. Only Doug Mirabelli's infield single in the inning produced a run, and the Sox' first hit with runners in scoring position in September.
The Sox have scored two or fewer runs six times in the last seven games. In the last 14 games they're hitting .197.
Boston starter Josh Beckett went five innings and allowed five hits and three earned runs, but was taken out after 77 pitches because he had warmed up twice because of the rain delay and Francona didn't want to risk getting Beckett hurt.
