It's raining runs at Fenway bash

But, most certainly, he wasn't scoring alone. Mike Lowell (four hits, three runs) was the sole Boston starter not to drive in a run as the team saved Tim Wakefield against a team he almost always dominates, scoring a season high in runs for a 16-10 win over the Devil Rays one day after they couldn't score anything off Scott Kazmir.

"It was exciting," Cash said. "It was fun to be a part of. Not that this was a must-win game, but it was a big game for us to win."

As the Yankees were winning their sixth straight, the Red Sox faced an 8-1 deficit in the fourth inning, after Kyle Snyder was greeted with a three-run home run by Carlos Peña one batter after relieving Wakefield. Adding the four runs in that inning to four scored by the bottom of the Tampa Bay order in the second inning, Wakefield and Snyder had placed the Red Sox in a deep hole, just as Wakefield had with a 3 2/3-inning, six-run outing last Thursday against Baltimore.

"It didn't start out looking real great," manager Terry Francona said. "Down 8-1's not really the formula. But I don't think we really abandoned our approach."

With four runs in the fourth, three runs in the fifth, and six runs in the sixth inning, the Red Sox stormed back against a cadre of relievers, each of whom left with an inflated ERA and, perhaps, a deflated sense of self. Other than Jay Witasick, who worked the eighth, no Tampa Bay pitcher emerged unscathed. And no Red Sox batter failed to better his average.

"We could have quit and just played the rest of the game, but to see the guys' heart and the way we came back was fun," said Jacoby Ellsbury, who hit his third major league home run to provide the Red Sox' first run of the game, on his 24th birthday.