Moments after his Boston Red Sox teammates tied the game up, Manny Ramirez made sure that they would come out of the game with a victory as his 2-run home run helped the Red Sox to a 6-4 win over the Cleveland Indians at a half-empty Progressive Field. It is the third straight win for the 2007 World Series champs.

Indians closer Joe Borowski was on the bump in the 9th inning and gave up a lead-off double to Julio Lugo. Coco Crisp moved Lugo to third and Dustin Pedroia tied the game up at 4 with a sacrifice fly. With the Indians playing their no-doubles defense, David Ortiz picked up his second hit of the game with a single off the end of the bat. Looking for speed on the base paths, skipper Terry Francona pinch-ran with Jacoby Ellsbury for Big Papi. It was a wasted but good move as Manny took a Borowski offering and planted it in the left field seats to give the Red Sox a 6-4 lead. The home run was the 493rd of Manny’s career. Youk followed that with a double that chased Borowski from the game. Rafael Perez came in and got J.D. Drew to strike out.

Jonathan Papelbon made sure the win would stick for the Red Sox as he struck out Grady Sizemore and Asdrubal Cabera to start the bottom of the 9th. Travis Hafner got into one but it fell just short of the wall and into Coco’s glove for the final out of the game and Papelbon’s 5th save.

Jon Lester started the game for the Red Sox and looked good in the first 3 innings. His struggles began in the 4th and 5th innings. Lester went 4 1/3 innings, giving up 5 hits, 4 runs, 5 walks while striking out 3.

Julian Tavarez was the other hero of the game for the Red Sox as he escaped a bases loaded jam in the 5th inning and had relatively easy 6th and 7th innings. Mike Timlin rebounded from his past two poor outings working a perfect 8th inning to get the win for the Red Sox.

Kevin Youkilis continues to swing a hot piece of lumber for the Red Sox as he was 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs, including a solo home run and two doubles. Manny was 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Coco continues to hit the ball well too as he was 2-for-4 out of the lead-off spot. And as I said above, Big Papi showed some signs of life as he had 2 hits.

The Red Sox got on the scoreboard in the 1st inning off of Indians starter Jake Westbrook. After a Coco ground out, Pedroia worked a walk and went to second on Big Papi’s single. Westbrook got Manny to strikeout looking. Youk brought Pedroia home with a deep double to left to give the Sox a 1-0 lead. Drew worked a walk to load up the bases but Westbrook got Jason Varitek to ground out to keep the game close.

After dominating the Indians for the first 3 innings of the game, Lester’s command began to go away. Cabrera worked a lead-off walk and went to third on a Hafner single. Victor Martinez tied the game up at 1 with an RBI single as Pronk moved up 90 feet. Lester rebounded to get Jhonny Peralta via the strikeout but a Ryan Garko single gave the Indians a 2-1 lead as Pronk scored from second. Lester got out of the inning as he got Jason Michaels to fly out and Franklin Gutierrez to pop out.

Lester’s wildness continued in the 5th inning as the first two Indians, Casey Blake and Sizemore, reached via the walk. Cabrera moved both runners up a base with a sacrifice bunt and Hafner brought them home with a 2-run single. Martinez followed that with a single and Peralta walked, forcing Francona to go to Tavarez. The move paid off as Yo-Yo struck out Garko and pinch-hitter David Dellucci to escape the bases loaded threat.

The Red Sox got a run back in the 7th inning. Westbrook walked Casey to start the inning. Lugo then grounded into a fielder’s choice that saw Casey retired at second. Crisp then reached on an infield single and Lugo would go to third on a throwing error by Martinez. Pedroia’s infield single scored Lugo cutting the lead to two at 4-2. Rafael Betancourt came in for Westbrook and struck out Big Papi and Manny to end the inning.

Youk got the Red Sox to within a run at 4-3 as he led off the 8th inning with his first home run of the year.

Notes and musings:

Boxscore

With the Bruins taking on the Canadiens tomorrow night in Game 4 of their NHL playoff tilt, the Red Sox will once again be relegated to the NESN Plus channel. Click here to find the NESN Plus channel on your cable or satellite provider.

This 2-game series marks the Red Sox’ lone scheduled regular season trip to Cleveland this season. The only other time that the clubs meet is a 4-game series at Fenway Park, September 22-25.

Three Red Sox, Coco Crisp, David Ortiz, and coach DeMarlo Hale, will join others around baseball in wearing Jackie Robinson’s #42 for Tuesday’s game.

After recording just 3 stolen bases in the 1st 12 games, the Red Sox had 4 on Sunday, their most in a game since July 19, 2003 vs. Toronto.

Jed Lowrie will make his MLB debut in tomorrow’s game, most likely at third base.

A funny exchange happened between Francona and Big Papi this morning.

Francona talked to Ortiz last night on the plane, and told him to call in the morning. The manager said that he would be OK with Ortiz missing a second game, but wanted to see how Ortiz felt in the morning.

So Francona received a text this morning, but thought it was from his daughter.

Not quite. He texted back asking which number she was texting from.

The response? “It’s mine, [expletive].”

“Now I’m getting [mad],” Francona said, laughing. “So I call and it’s David. I was all mixed up. Cause the last one said, ‘Put me in, [expletive],’ and I can’t figure it out. I was actually kind of relieved. [Heck], if David gets hits or not, at least I don’t have a 14-year-old talking like that to her Dad. Anyway, the good news is my daughter seems to be not speaking like that and David wants to play. So we’re OK.”

Jacoby Ellsbury, 2-for-2 in steal tries this season, has been successful on all 11 of his career attempts, the longest streak by a Sox player to begin a career since Lee Tinsley swiped his 1st 15 in 1994 and 1995.