Red Sox rally to beat DBacks 5-4

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 BOSTON Behind 4-1 in the eighth inning, the Red Sox pushed across 4 runs to take a 5-4 lead. Varitek began working his way out of a long slump and the Boston Red Sox emerged from a short one, beating the Dbacks 5-4 Tuesday night with a four-run eighth inning capped by the captain's go-ahead single. Varitek was mired in a 1-for-30 slump before driving in the go-ahead run for the Red Sox.

"Tek's been a little bit unlucky," said Mike Lowell, whose two-run double tied the game at 4. "He's hit better than just those numbers, but it always feels good for a ball to drop, especially in a big situation." They were dropping all over the place in the eighth. Boston had six hits in the inning, one more than it totaled in the first seven and two more than the Red Sox managed in Monday night's 2-1 loss in the series opener. The win maintained their one-game lead in the AL East over Tampa Bay, which beat Florida 6-4.

"Any comeback win is big," Lowell said, "especially when I saw Tampa Bay won and we can stay atop our division." Chris Smith (1-0) pitched two scoreless innings in relief of another rookie, Justin Masterson, for his first major league win. Arizona led 4-1 going into the bottom of the eighth behind the pitching of Davis and the hitting of Chad Tracy, who singled home a run in the second and hit a three-run homer, his third of the season, in the third.

"We had a good feeling going into that inning," Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said. "A couple of guys get on and it unraveled on us." Dustin Pedroia's seventh homer in the first was the only run off Davis through seven innings. But the left-hander allowed singles to the first two batters in the eighth, Julio Lugo and Jacoby Ellsbury, and was replaced by Chad Qualls (1-6). Pedroia singled in Lugo, but Qualls nearly got out of the jam by striking out Drew and retiring Manny Ramirez, who has one RBI in 11 games, on a grounder to third.