Red Sox News & Notes – 9/19

Infielder Pedro Ciriaco #77 of the Boston Red Sox scores a run against the Tampa Bay Rays during the game at Tropicana Field on September 18, 2012 in St. Petersburg, Florida.

The dream of a .500 season for the Boston Red Sox is still alive. Of course they’ll still need to win their final 13 games of the season.

For the second straight night, the Red Sox played spoiler to playoff hopes of the Tampa Bay Rays as they rallied from a 3-0 deficit to take a 7-5 win in front of a large crowd at Tropicana Field (11,502).

With that loss for the Rays, they fall six games behind in the AL East and the AL Wild Card standings behind the the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles who are tied for first and tied for the second AL Wild Card spot behind the Oakland A’s. The Orioles moved into a tie for first with their 18 inning win over the Seattle Mariners while the Yankees were rained out against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Given the way the 3rd inning was going for Felix Doubront, you would have thought there was no way he would last six innings never mind pick up his 11th win of the season.

He started the inning by striking out Chris Gimenez then issued three straight walks to Sean Rodriguez, Desmond Jennings and B.J. Upton. Ben Zobrist followed that up with two-run single and then Evan Longoria‘s sacrifice fly made it 3-0. Doubront avoided any further trouble by getting Jeff Keppinger to ground into a fielder’s choice.

The Red Sox battled back one run at a time.

Cody Ross led off the 4th with a double and came into score one batter later on a James Loney single. In the 5th, they chased Jeremy Hellickson from the game.

Hellickson walked Jose Iglesias then gave up a single to Pedro Ciriaco. Jacoby Ellsbury followed that up with a single to score Iglesias. Jake McGee came in and was greeted by a Dustin Pedroia sac fly that tied the game up at 3.

They went ahead for good in the 6th when they took advantage of a throwing error. Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Ryan Lavarnway added insurance in the 7th with an RBI single and two-run double respectively. The insurance was needed as the bullpen gave up two runs in the bottom half.

It’s nice to see the Red Sox playing some good baseball right now. While it’s not pretty at times, they are out there battling and doing their collective best to play spoiler. Let’s just hope this continues.

We’ll be back later today with today’s lineups, batter/pitcher matchups and links from the day. So for now, let’s take at look at the overnight links from the media by clicking on the read more button below if you’re on the home page.

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Felix Doubront aims to finish strong [boston herald]

Alfredo Aceves’ time may not be up [boston herald]

When adding bat, it’s OK to think big [boston herald]

John Lackey keeps looking better [boston herald]

Knuckleball heroes unite! [boston herald]

Valentine: ‘I hope it works well for [Bogar]’ [rob bradford – weei.com]

Middlebrooks begins throwing program [rob bradford – weei.com]

Sox win again in Tampa Bay, 7-5 [csn new england]

Lackey throws in simulated game, won’t pitch Majors in 2012 [csn new england]

Doubront settles down, earns first win since July 18 [csn new england]

Notes: Long rest for Aceves; Lavarnway gains experience [csn new england]