On a night where Jonathan Papelbon and Hideki Okajima weren’t available in the Boston Red Sox bullpen, Tim Wakefield did his best to keep the Tigers at bay and the offense helped him out as well as the Red Sox beat Detroit 5-0 in front of 38,564 fans at Comerica Park. The win for the Red Sox is their 5th straight.

Wakefield was simply dominating tonight in his best start of the season. He gave up 2 hits in 8 innings of work, throwing 98 pitches to strike out six. He didn’t issue a walk. Mike Timlin worked a perfect 9th inning.

Manny Ramirez continues to swing a hot piece of lumber as he was 3-for-5 with a home run and RBI. Kevin Cash continues to impress with his bat as he was 3-for-4 with an RBI. Kevin Youkilis added 2 hits and David Ortiz added a solo home run to the cause.

The first hit allowed by Wake came in the bottom of the 1st when he gave up a 2-out single to Carlos Guillen. He came right back to strike out Magglio Ordoñez.

The visiting nine gave Wake all the run support he would need in the top half of the 2nd inning off of Tigers starter Nate Robertson.

Mike Lowell worked a lead-off walk and went to third on the first of two Youk doubles. J.D. Drew singled in Lowell to give the Sox a 1-0 lead. Cash followed that with a double scoring Youk, making it 2-0. Robertson got Lugo to fly out to shallow right and then Coco Crisp grounded out with Drew scoring on the play for a 3-0 Sox lead.

In the 7th inning, Robertson got Dustin Pedroia to ground out and then served up a meat ball to Big Papi who homered to the right field seats. The home run chased Robertson from the game as Tigers skipper Jim Leyland brought in rookie Freddy Dolsi for the his MLB debut. Manny made his debut a memorable one as he took the first pitch he saw from Pelosi and crushed a home run to center field that traveled an estimated 427 feet. The home run for Manny was the 497th of his career.

Meanwhile, Wakefield was cruising right along as he had retired 17 straight Tigers hitters before Guillen reached on a Pedroia error. Not to worry though as Wake got Ordoñez to pop out and Miguel Cabrera flew out to end the inning.

In the 8th inning, Wakefield got the first two outs before Ivan Rodriguez doubled. Wake ended his great night on the mound by getting Brandon Inge to ground out.

Clay Buchholz looks to continue the Red Sox run tomorrow night where he will be opposed by fellow rookie Armando Galarraga.

Notes and Musings:

Boxscore Red Sox @ Tigers, 5-6-08

Red Sox pitchers issued 10 walks in the victory on Monday night. It was the 5th time since 1985 that Boston has won a 9-inning game when allowing at least 10 walks and the 10th time overall in that span.

During the current 4-game winning streak, Boston has never trailed with a lead in 34 of the 36 total innings in this span coming into tonight.

The Red Sox are batting .347 (50-144) with 32 runs, 19 doubles, and 5 homers in the last 4 games to raise team average from .278 to .286, 2nd highest in the majors to Atlanta (.287).

Boston leads the majors with 332 hits and 78 doubles and also top the American League with 168 runs, 505 total bases, 111 extra base hits, a .436 slugging percentage, and a .361 on-base percentage.

The Red Sox are now 1st in the majors with 147 walks after issuing 10 on Monday.

Sox have 5 players with 20 or more runs scored (Ellsbury-25; Ramirez-21; Drew, Ortiz, Youkilis-20 each). No other A.L. team has more than 2.

Tonight’s game took only 2 hours and 23 minutes.

The win improved the Red Sox record to 8-8 on the road.