BOSTON -- For the sixth time this season, the Red Sox climbed back to the .500 mark.

For the umpteenth time, they were left to worry about losing another key player to injury.

Taking advantage of a reprieve to Mike Aviles after it appeared he'd struck out on a foul tip, the Sox scored three times in the second inning and coasted behind left-hander Felix Doubront (2 runs on 4 hits in 6 innings) and Scott Atchison (4 K's in 2 scoreless). The win raised Doubront's record to 5-2.

The Tigers doubled their score in the ninth when Alfredo Aceves gave up a two-run home run for the second time in two games, this one struck by Jhonny Peralta.

Instead of whiffing to end the second, Aviles singled home a run and scored another on a double by Daniel Nava, who had displaced Aviles as leadoff man Monday and came around to score on Dustin Pedroia's single off the glove of Tigers first baseman Prince Fielder. Aviles, who had just 2 hits in 22 plate appearances over his previous five games, doubled home another run in the eighth.

Both times his hits scored Ryan Sweeney, who had a double and two singles in his first game back from the 7-day disabled list (concussion). Jarrod Saltalamacchia also hit his ninth home run, tied for most among major-league catchers, singled, and scored twice for the Sox.

But the day's most significant downturn for the Sox came in the fifth, when Pedroia made a terrific diving stop on a ball hit to his left by Tigers second baseman Danny Worth. Pedroia did not come back out for the sixth, and the club subsequently announced that he had jammed the thumb on his right hand.

Pedroia had started all 48 games for the Sox this season.

The Tigers, who came into the game with the same record as the Red Sox (23-24), lost both manager Jim Leyland and third-base coach Gene Lamont to ejections after the second inning, their dismay triggered by the call by first-base umpire Bill Welke that the ball tipped by Aviles had struck the ground before reaching the glove of catcher Gerald Laird.