Tiger tamers

It has been a rough stretch, without question. But if the season ended today, the Sox would make the playoffs - they moved a half-game ahead of the idle Rangers in the American League wild-card race. More important, the Red Sox stabilized themselves mid-free fall.

“It’s easy to downplay and say it’s just another game,’’ left fielder Jason Bay said. “But the last thing you want to do is lose another one and you keep saying the same thing - ‘Hey, no big deal, lots of season left.’ That whole thing. Then you end up all of a sudden trying to get yourself out of quicksand. Just that one game to stop it sometimes means more than just one win.’’

The Sox scored two runs before recording an out, matching their total from the previous 33 innings, when Dustin Pedroia drilled a home run over the Green Monster in the first inning. They led, 4-0, after two innings, but nothing has come easy lately, and that theme did not change.

Starting pitcher Brad Penny vomited because of acid reflux before his final inning, the 1-2-3 sixth. The winning run didn’t come until Nick Green, who had driven a ball clear out of Fenway earlier in the game, lined a sacrifice fly to center in the seventh to score J.D. Drew.

“Not everything went our way,’’ Francona said. “We desperately needed to find a way to win a game. And we did.’’

Bay’s parabolic homer into the Monster seats gave the Red Sox a 5-3 lead in the fifth, but the Tigers refused to fade. Manny Delcarmen surrendered the two-run edge in the seventh on a pair of two-out hits.

The Sox had ignited their offense with power. When they needed one run, and they relied on precision. Drew led off the seventh with a single. With one out, the Sox called a hit-and-run. Casey Kotchman’s single scooted through the middle while Drew hustled to third base, a clinical play that placed the go-ahead run on third for Green.