Tonight was one of those blah games that the Red Sox just have to grind through to ultimately get where they want to go: October. Boston (80-56 overall, 43-24 home) beat the White Sox (56-77 overall, 24-43 away) 4-3 in the series opener at Fenway Park and it turned out to be pretty important after the fact since the Rays fell 4-3 at the A's. That gives Boston a 3.5 game lead over Tampa Bay for first place in the AL East.
Ryan Dempster (7-9) returned from his suspension and extended break between outings. He benefitted from a 4-0 lead built up by the fourth inning as the Red Sox hung on for the win thanks to a four-out save (his 15th overall) for Koji Uehara. Before the roof started to somewhat cave in on him, Dempster went 6.1 innings and allowed three earned runs on five hits with five strikeouts and three walks.
Junichi Tazawa pitched a scoreless inning, Franklin Morales retired the lone batter he faced then manager John Farrell went to Uehara earlier than normal but it paid off.
Mike Napoli earned a bases loaded walk in the third inning to get Boston on the board then Shane Victorino (2 hits, 2 runs, walk, stolen base) had an RBI single and David Ortiz added a two-run base hit in the fourth. Ortiz's was extra important since it snapped his 0-for-23 drought (tied for the longest in his Red Sox career).
Dayan Viciedo drove in Chicago's first run with an RBI single in the fifth then Avisail Garcia hit a solo homer in the seventh and Alejandro De Aza cut it to 4-3 with an RBI triple in the same frame.
It's hard to get much juice out of a Red Sox-White Sox game this season but Jake Peavy (10-5) should make it a little more interesting tomorrow night (7:10, NESN) as he faces his former team and teammate John Danks (4-10). Keep in mind ex-White Sox reliever Matt Thornton was just activated for Boston and I'm sure he'll face them too at some point this weekend.
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