Red Sox show stripes

Indecipherable syntax was joined by what began to look like severely flawed logic when Tavarez nearly gave back all of a five-run lead - five straight Tigers reaching base before Gary Sheffield hit into a double play - but Jonathan Papelbon got the last four outs, the Red Sox tacked on four more runs, and they took the rubber game of their three-game set with De troit, 12-6, before 37,612 at Fenway Park.

"It got a little hairy, it was not real comfortable for me," said Francona, whose team scored a season-high dozen runs in its first game without Mike Lowell, who went on the 15-day disabled list with a strained ligament in his left thumb, and despite the ongoing woes of David Ortiz, enduring the worst slump he's had since coming to the Sox and the equal of any he's suffered in his career.

Francona removed Okajima, who retired Carlos Guillen on a fly ball to end the seventh, after Magglio Ordonez homered off Manny Delcarmen to pull the Tigers within a run (4-3), because the Sox scored four times in the bottom of the inning, the big blow a two-run double by Manny Ramírez after he'd fouled off three full-count pitches.

"You don't want to use [Okajima's] bullets when we've got a big lead," said Francona, mindful of the Yankees' arrival tonight with their arsenal of lefthanded bats.

But Tavarez's ineffectiveness nearly scuttled that plan. He went walk, single, walk, single, single before Sheffield, who has made a career of doing damage in Fenway, came to the plate with the bases loaded, representing the go-ahead run. Papelbon, meanwhile, was up and throwing in the bullpen but was not ready to enter.

Tavarez saved the lead, and spared Francona an unholy round of second-guessing, when he induced Sheffield to hit a bouncer to shortstop Julio Lugo, who stepped on the bag and threw to first for the double play while a run scored to make it 8-6.

"When he got that double play," Francona said, "there was nobody in the ballpark happier than me. Again, I still believe in what we did, but it wasn't going the way we envisioned. Any time you have a lead, the last thing you want to do is let a ball club back in the game."