ESPN

BALTIMORE -- A few quick hits before the season finale:

* John Farrell broached the idea of skipping Sunday’s start to John Lackey during Saturday night’s game, and Lackey was amenable to the idea, which is why rookie Allen Webster drew the starting assignment.

* Lackey finishes the season with a 10-13 record and 3.52 in 29 starts and 189 1/3 innings, exceeding all expectations for a pitcher coming off Tommy John surgery 17 months before the start of the 2013 season.

* Farrell said he expects to use several relievers on Sunday, including Felix Doubront, who has yet to pitch out of the pen after starting all season. Doubront had a lengthy conversation with GM Ben Cherington on the field before Saturday’s game, and it remains to be seen whether he will be kept on the postseason roster as a reliever.

* Dustin Pedroia and Daniel Nava were both given the day off, assuring both of them of finishing the season with a .300 average, which, even in this age of advanced sabermetrics, is a recognized benchmark. Nava is at .303, Pedroia .301. Pedroia played 160 games, a new club record.

* Jacoby Ellsbury, who sat Saturday, was back in the starting lineup Sunday and begins the day at .297. Ellsbury finishes at .300 if he goes 2-for-2, 3-for-3, or 3-for-4. He would give the Sox a fourth .300 hitter. David Ortiz leads the team with a .308 average.

* Shortstop Stephen Drew also was given the day off.

* Farrell said Ellsbury’s health is no longer a factor in whether the club carries an extra center-fielder in the postseason.

* Farrell said backup catcher David Ross “absolutely” will get at least one start in the playoffs, probably against a left-handed starter.

* The decision on whether to carry 10 or 11 pitchers has yet to be made.

* The Sox are assured of being no worse than tied for the best record in the majors. The Cardinals begin the day a game behind the Sox, who are 97-64. The Cardinals are 96-65.

* Still alive is the Sox stolen-base streak. They’ve stolen 38 in a row without being caught, most since Toronto stole 38 in 1993.

DENVER -- If you’re thinking it has been a while since you’ve seen this, you’re right.

The Boston Red Sox lost 8-3 to the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday, their most one-sided loss since Aug. 16, when the New York Yankees beat them by seven runs in Fenway Park.

The Sox are 31-13 this season in games decided by five or more runs. This was one of the 13.

However, the loss didn't cost the Sox their hold on the best record in the American League as the Oakland Athletics lost 3-0 to the Los Angeles Angels, meaning the Sox have a one-game lead with four games to play. The Detroit Tigers, who started the night four games behind with five to play, beat the Twins, so they’re three back with four to play.

The disappointment of the loss also was tempered by manager John Farrell’s postgame announcement that Jacoby Ellsbury has been cleared to return to the lineup Wednesday night for the first time since Sept. 5. Ellsbury has missed the past 16 games while giving time for some subsiding of the bruising and inflammation around the small fracture in the navicular bone of his right foot.

"He’s likely to start in center field, leading off, yes," Farrell said.

Sox starter John Lackey gave up three bases-empty home runs in the first four innings and four runs in all over six innings, and the Rockies tacked on four more in the seventh inning against Boston's bullpen.

"Not one of our better nights on the mound," Farrell said. "John made a couple of mistakes he paid for, especially in a park where we know the ball is going to carry. The three home runs allowed are not common for him the way he’s pitched us for all year, and in the seventh inning, we let the game get away from us with four runs."

Lackey has not been the same pitcher on the road (4-10, 4.48 ERA) that he has been at home (6-3, 2.47 ERA), which probably will factor into how Farrell lines up his postseason rotation. Lackey seems like an obvious choice to follow Jon Lester in the second game of the division series in Boston, with Clay Buchholz pitching Game 3 on the road, but Farrell has yet to reveal his plans.

Why is Lackey better at Fenway? Farrell thinks it could be that he is better to his glove side of the plate, and thus takes advantage of the wide spaces in right and center fields in the Fens. And Lackey? He stammered something, then said, "You can’t put your finger on it, really. If I could pitch that well on the road, I’d certainly try to."

Lackey originally was scheduled to throw an inning or so Tuesday, before it was decided to give him another full start. Asked if he would throttle down Sunday in his final start, he shrugged and said, "I only work here." As if the Sox haven’t discussed their plans fully with the pitcher.

Reliever Brandon Workman hadn’t pitched in a week, the Sox looking to give the rookie some rest, but the downtime did nothing for his command. "He looked like he hadn’t pitched in a while," Farrell said. "Knowing the number of innings and the high stress innings, we wanted to buy him some time, and it looked like there was a little rust."

Drake Britton replaced Lackey at the start of the seventh and gave up a leadoff double to catcher Jordan Pacheco. Workman entered and in short order gave up a single to pinch hitter Jeff Rutledge, a walk to Charlie Blackmon and a two-run single to DJ LeMahieu. After a double steal, Troy Tulowitzki grounded out to third, but then Michael Cuddyer blooped a two-run single, knocking out Workman.

The Sox trailed 8-1, until David Ortiz singled ahead of Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s 14th home run in the ninth.

BOSTON -- One day after clinching the American League East division title, Red Sox manager John Farrell's lineup for Saturday's game against Toronto featured several significant changes.

Most notable was usual third baseman Will Middlebrooks penciled in to play first base, his first professional game at the position.

"Will has worked out at first base in early work at periodic times during the year," Farrell said. "He's a good athlete and we feel like he shouldn't be a fish out of water in this."

Farrell alluded to several other factors going into the decision, including Middlebrooks' strong career numbers (6-for-13) against Mark Buehrle, Toronto's Saturday starter. The move also gives Farrell a chance to see how Middlebrooks handles the position, something that could give the manager another option if a pinch running situation arises for primary first baseman Mike Napoli in the postseason.

"Anytime you move to a different position, it's going to take some repetition. Still, you're on a corner so there's similar reaction time that's going to be required there," Farrell explained. "But again, he's an infielder. That's required to do some things reactionary and that's going to be the same at first base."

Before taking batting practice, Middlebrooks spoke excitedly about the opportunity.

"I'll have fun with it. It's the best way to learn," he said before being surprised by his parents, Tom and Julie Middlebrooks, on the field (mom sporting a new hair style that Middlebrooks said led him to not recognize her initially).

In addition to Middlebrooks at first, shortstop Stephen Drew will bat leadoff for the first time this season. Outfielder Shane Victorino returned to the starting lineup batting second after appearing in Friday's division-clinching win as a defensive replacement in the ninth inning. Victorino missed two starts after exiting Wednesday night's game against the Baltimore Orioles with a jammed right thumb.

Dustin Pedroia, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Napoli were given the day off, while infielder John McDonald will make his first start for the Red Sox.

Here's the complete lineup for Saturday night's contest:

1. Stephen Drew, SS
2. Shane Victorino, CF
3. David Ortiz, DH
4. Jonny Gomes, LF
5. Daniel Nava, RF
6. Will Middlebrooks 1B
7. Xander Bogaerts, 3B
8. David Ross, C
9. John McDonald, 2B
RHP -- Clay Buchholz

* Farrell said that right-hander John Lackey is expected to pitch out of the bullpen for an inning in Tuesday's game against the Colorado Rockies in order to get some work in.

"He won't start a game until we get to Baltimore, so rather than going 10 days between starts he'll probably get an inning of work just to stay sharp."

* Farrell also offered an update on the status of outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury, who resumed baseball activities Friday.

"He ran today, he hit more off the tee, he threw. We're hopeful to get some BP in the cage tomorrow. He's making steady progress so we're hopeful that he'll be back in our lineup sometime this coming trip."

BOSTON -- Some teams have all the fun. Like the Los Angeles Dodgers, who won the National League West on Thursday afternoon in Arizona and celebrated by jumping into the Diamondbacks’ pool, which hardly endeared them to the locals.

“I could call it disrespectful and classless,” Diamondbacks president and CEO Derrick Hall, a former Dodgers employee, said via email, “but they don't have a beautiful pool at their old park and must have really wanted to see what one was like.”

On Thursday night, the Red Sox clinched a spot in the playoffs, too, beating the Baltimore Orioles 3-1, and did it at home, so they weren’t at risk of offending anyone had they also elected to make a splash. Remember the Sox running down to various local watering holes and commandeering the taps when they made the playoffs in 2003?

The challenge for the Sox, had they been interested in a communal dip after John Lackey’s complete-game two-hitter, would have been finding a suitable place for a dunking. The local Howard Johnson’s, behind the first-base grandstand, used to have a pool, but the clerk working the front desk said the chain got rid of it a couple of years ago. They could have had a private splash party -- there’s a lap pool in the exercise area above the clubhouse at Fenway -- but then no one would have been able to share in the hilarity, which is the point, isn’t it?

There are other ways to get soaked during a celebration -- champagne spraying comes to mind -- but these Sox remain intent on loftier goals than merely qualifying for the postseason tournament. There is still a division title to be won, and Thursday night's victory potentially put the Sox a night away from a bona fide, no-holds-barred, hide-the-women-and-children celebration Friday night.

“I mean, it’s not over," said Stephen Drew, the Sox shortstop who hit a two-run home run in the second, when the Sox scored all of their runs against Chris Tillman, a Boston nemesis. “We’ve still got games to play, and it’s huge to clinch a spot -- we’re not saying that [it isn’t]. It’s always huge to get in there, but hopefully in the next three days or so, whatever it takes to finally clinch the division, that’s what we want."

The Tampa Bay Rays lost at home 8-2 to the Texas Rangers on Thursday night, reducing the Sox's magic number to 1 to clinch their first AL East title since 2007. A Sox win or Rays loss settles the matter. The Sox's opponent Friday night? The Toronto Blue Jays, the team that employed John Farrell as manager the previous two years.

“We know where we’re at," Farrell said. “We know what was pending. We still feel like the next step is a more important one than this. We said a few times winning the East, that’s been a stated goal since spring training, that’s getting closer, and I think that will be a little more realization of where we’ve come from and where we are, at that moment."

But Farrell acknowledged there was some symmetry in Lackey, scorned from the outside as an overpaid acquisition through his first three years in Boston (which included the lost year of 2012 while he recovered from Tommy John surgery), being the one to send the Sox into the postseason.

“The remake of John Lackey, both physically and getting back on the mound and performing as he’s done all year, mirrors that of this team," Farrell said. “It’s been a remake, and it’s somewhat fitting that to clinch a spot to get into the playoffs with him on the mound, and to go nine innings the way he did -- like I said, was very fitting."

The Sox had lost the past two nights against the Orioles, who are fighting to stay alive in the wild-card race, but Lackey didn’t give them a chance Thursday. Pumping fastballs and sliders almost exclusively, Lackey took a no-hitter into the seventh, when Adam Jones crushed a hanging cutter onto Landsdowne Street for a home run with one out.

The Sox right-hander allowed just one more hit, a one-out single to right by J.J. Hardy in the eighth, and retired Jones on a fly ball to right for the game’s final out as a crowd of 36,436 chanted his name.

Lackey fell back on an old pitcher’s deceit, claiming the no-hitter occupied no place in the space beneath his cap. He’s never had one in the big leagues; he took one into the ninth inning against the Red Sox in Fenway Park on July 29, 2008, until Dustin Pedroia singled with one out and Kevin Youkilis followed with a home run.

“I just wanted to win the game," Lackey, then with the Angels, said that day. “The no-hitter would have been nice. Whatever. But we’re about winning games."

Fast-forward to Thursday night, and you heard an echo.

“Just trying to win a game," said Lackey, dismissing thoughts of a no-no while commending his catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia for calling “a great game, as usual."

“Can’t get too far ahead of yourself."

The Sox had only one hit -- Drew’s triple in the sixth -- over the final 5 1/3 innings, but Drew’s two-run homer, a double by rookie Jackie Bradley Jr. and an RBI single by Pedroia accounted for three runs in the Sox second.

“We were able to bunch some hits together," Farrell said in explaining the team’s relative success against Tillman, who still hasn’t allowed them more than three earned runs in a start since June 4, 2010, and lost for the first time in five starts at Fenway Park.

“He left his curveball up in the zone a couple of times. Bradley with the double the opposite way in the corner. Stephen, opposite-field home run. We didn’t miss pitches when they were up in the strike zone."

The Red Sox won 69 games and lost 93 last season. They hadn’t lost 90 or more games since 1966, which they followed a year later with “The Impossible Dream" pennant run.

Thursday night’s victory gave the Red Sox 93 wins, a one-year reversal that is the biggest since Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky and Bobby Doerr came back from war and the Sox won 104 games in 1946 after winning just 71 the year before.

Impossible? The season began as a white canvas. A blank page, full of possibilities, as a great composer once wrote. For these Red Sox, on the cusp of October, the possibilities are still without end.

Kyle Brasseur of ESPNBoston.com contributed to this report.

BOSTON -- After days of doing his best to thwart questioning that involves the playoffs, Red Sox manager John Farrell is beginning to open up. Just a bit.

Farrell mapped out a large portion of his upcoming rotation and revealed the trio in the final series of the season at Baltimore, which would end five days before a possible Division Series opener at Fenway Park on Oct. 4.

Felix Doubront, who threw a simulated game Tuesday, will return to the Red Sox rotation Saturday against Toronto, Farrell said, slotting between Jon Lester on Friday and Clay Buchholz on Sunday. The club then visits Colorado for two games, which will feature Ryan Dempster and Jake Peavy on the mound, and then ends the regular season with three games at Camden Yards.

John Lackey, Lester and Buchholz each will be rested and ready to go in that season-ending series, potentially in that order. However, there are also two days off in the mix, giving Farrell plenty of wiggle room as he maps out the order for the Orioles series with an eye toward the first round of the playoffs. Who starts Game 1 is the question on everyone’s mind, but the Sox skipper stopped short of giving any answers beyond his Baltimore plans.

And even those remain up in the air.

“As the rotation kind of plays out over the next three series prior to Baltimore, those three guys are going to be rested and available to pitch in that series,” Farrell said Tuesday afternoon at Fenway Park. “We haven’t mapped it out who’s going to start Saturday or Sunday there. We also have to balance two off-days next week and then the potential for those four days off [before the playoffs start] as well, and not have a guy get too far away from a start.

“I mention those three guys because they’re all going to be eligible and rested going into Baltimore. What rotation they fall under, that’s yet to be determined.”

If Buchholz, who improved to 11-0 on Sunday night against the New York Yankees, is Farrell’s pick for a Game 1 start, he could conveniently stay in order and pitch Buchholz in the season finale and then again five days later in the Division Series opener. If Lester is the choice, it is an easy swap for Farrell, who might be inclined to give Buchholz more time between starts and make him the Game 2 choice.

Either way, with the Sox on the cusp of clinching the American League East and possessing a 3 ½-game advantage for the best overall record in the AL, it is obvious that the wheels are beginning to turn in the direction of a decision, even if Farrell is doing his best to put up roadblocks.

“We haven’t even looked at it that close. We don’t know who we’re playing so it can’t be matchups at this point,” he said when asked if reward or matchups is the bigger factor in deciding a Game 1 starter. “We’re going on those three guys rested enough to pitch in Baltimore and we’ll be sure that we get everybody to the mound prior to the end of that weekend to make sure that we get the most recent action leading into what might be following that. We’ll delve into that more once that gets closer.”

Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell shed a little light on who will get the start in Game 1 of the ALDS on Monday night, telling WEEI’s Road to October show that it’ll probably be either John Lackey, Jon Lester or Clay Buchholz.

He said those are the three pitchers lined up to start in Baltimore in the final series of the season from Sept. 27-29. Because of the one-game wild card playoff game, the Sox -- provided they win the AL East (their magic number is four) -- have an opportunity to line their pitchers up any way they want for the playoffs.

“This year is so different,” Farrell told WEEI. “We’ve got 4 days off between the end of the season and the possible first game. There’s not the play-in game, there’s the ability to arrange things. In the past, we never had that option. You went from the last day of the season, one day off, and your next series started. So your rotation was kind of pared down to maybe one or two options, it was pretty clear. This time around, we have the possibility of more options.

“Just looking at the way our rotation plays out the remaining 11 games, when we go to Baltimore it’s going to be Lackey, Lester and Buchholz. That’s the way it’s falling right now. Those are the three guys who are going to start that series. That’s kind of where we are, and I think probably one of those three will end up pitching Game 1, provided that we get there.”

Which one would you choose for Game 1? We make the case for each below:

* Jon Lester: In his past eight starts, Lester has been the dominant ace the Red Sox were hoping for all season long. He is 4-2 with a 1.86 ERA since early August, this after a 14-start stretch from May-July in which he was 4-6 with a 5.81 ERA.

* Clay Buchholz: After missing almost three months, Buchholz has actually been better since his return that he was over his first 10 starts of the season (9-0 with a 1.71 ERA). Though he walked four and surrendered an unearned run in his last outing, Buchholz has gone 11 innings without surrendering an earned run in two September starts.

* Jon Lackey: Though he hasn’t gotten the run support, Lackey has been the most consistent Red Sox starter this season. He had a 3.22 ERA before a bad outing in the Bronx (7 runs in 5 2/3 innings) earlier this month.

BOSTON -- After a seven-game road trip filled with close games and late-inning heroics, it was only fitting for the Red Sox to return home on Friday night doing the same in grand style.

Following a two-run top of the seventh inning for the Yankees that tied the score at 4, catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia hit a grand slam, his first since May 2009, to put the Red Sox on top for good in their eventual 8-4 win.

“I was really just trying to get a good pitch to hit in the air,” Saltalamacchia said. “I just needed to get a strike up in the zone to do something with.”

Facing reliever Preston Claiborne, who hadn’t pitched since allowing six runs to Boston in two-thirds of an inning between two appearances September 5 and 6, Saltalamacchia took a 92 mph fastball over the plate to deep right for the team’s eighth grand slam this year, and fourth since the start of September. Each of Boston’s four September slams have been hit by a different player (Mike Carp on Sept. 11, Mike Napoli on Sept. 6, Will Middlebrooks on Sept. 4).

“That’s what is making this season fun,” designated hitter David Ortiz said. “You’re not talking [about] a team that depends on one guy ... we have plenty of guys doing their thing out there.”

The Red Sox established a lead early, scoring four in the first inning. But Boston starter John Lackey ran into trouble in the top of the seventh. After he allowed back-to-back singles to the bottom of the Yankees order, manager John Farrell pulled Lackey in favor of his bullpen, a group that has allowed the game-tying or winning run to score after the sixth inning in three of their last four games.

“I thought he had done his job,” Farrell said of his decision to pull Lackey after only 82-pitches. “I felt like that was the move at the time.”

The move backfired as reliever Craig Breslow loaded the bases on an Alex Rodriguez walk before yielding a two-run double to Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano. Brandon Workman came in to retire Alfonso Soriano, turning things over to what became yet another Red Sox offensive rally following a bullpen falter.

“We’ve got the ability to show the resiliency,” Farrell said. “They score the two [runs] to tie it, and then we build the inning obviously prior to Salty’s grand slam. We’re getting big hits and it’s been spread around.”

NEW YORK -- Not even the alarming news that Jacoby Ellsbury may have sustained the most significant September injury by a Red Sox outfielder since a future Hall of Famer named Jim Rice broke his wrist in 1975 could keep the Sox from their appointed rounds Saturday afternoon, which in this case meant another beatdown of the New York Yankees and one step closer to a division title.

With Ellsbury on a plane to Denver for a second opinion regarding a possible fractured navicular bone in his right foot -- the same bone that shortened Dustin Pedroia's season to 75 games in 2010 -- the Sox won their third straight over the Yankees, 13-9, before a sellout crowd of 49,046 in Yankee Stadium.

The Sox made it five straight wins overall and eight of their last nine to go 30 games over .500 (87-57) for the first time this season. The magic number to winning the AL East title is 13, and could shrink further if the Tampa Bay Rays lose again in Seattle.

On Aug. 24, the Red Sox and Rays were tied for the AL East lead. Since then, the Sox have won 11 of 13 while the Rays have lost 10 of 13, not including their game against the Mariners Saturday night. Talk about two roads diverging in a yellow wood.

Finally, the heavens opened for Red Sox pitcher John Lackey and runs rained down, which must have been as disorienting as a monsoon in the desert, because Lackey gave seven of them back in his worst outing of the season.

Sox rookie shortstop Xander Bogaerts, the Promised Child, made his first big league home run one to remember, hitting it over the visitors’ bullpen, 443 feet away, as calculated by the home run trackers at ESPN Stats & Info.

Jonny Gomes and Mike Napoli homered in consecutive innings. We’d tell you the order, but since Gomes says even his kids can’t tell them apart, we won’t hazard a guess which came first. (A check of the box score says Napoli went deep with a runner on in the second inning, and Gomes followed an inning later with two aboard.)

Then Napoli did it again in the ninth, his 21st of the season and fourth in four games, and kids throughout New England were asking their mothers if they could trick or treat on Halloween as a Soggy Bottom boy (Game 7 of the World Series, by the way, falling on Halloween this year).

The Red Sox, who scored 20 runs in the course of one night against the Tigers last Wednesday, put another 21 on the board against the Yankees in the span of eight innings spread over two nights. Nine runs in the seventh and eighth innings Friday, a dozen more (2 in the second, 3 in the third, 5 in the fourth, 2 in the fifth) in the first five innings Saturday.

"Right now they’re not missing pitches," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.

The Yankees, who needed a reliever [David Huff] to make his first start of the season and were one step away from recruiting ushers to work out of the bullpen after setup men Boone Logan and David Robertson both got hurt Friday night, had little answer to a Sox offense that has 17 home runs in the last four games and had hits from every batter in the order by the end of the fourth inning Saturday.

It wasn’t much later that Roger Angell, the elegant bard of baseball just 12 days shy of his 93rd birthday, slipped out of the press box, perhaps having surmised that if it was a football score he wanted, he could have just stayed at home and flipped on his television, rather than watching this one. The Yankees have used a franchise-record 53 players this season and the vast majority of them will never make the cut for Yankee hagiography.

To the Yankees’ credit, they gamely battled back, knocking Lackey out in the sixth (5.2 IP, 8 H, 7 ER) and drawing to within three of the Sox before Napoli, who had hit a 3-0 pitch off Huff for his second-inning home run, connected again off Brett Marshall.

BOSTON -- There are 30 teams in the major leagues. None have fewer sacrifice hits than the Red Sox, who have 18, the same as the White Sox.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia has three sacrifice hits in his career, all coming in 2009, when he was with Texas. Perhaps, you might surmise, not the ideal candidate to ask to bunt in the late innings of a close game against the team that is vying with you for best record in the American League.

But there was the Red Sox catcher, trying to lay one down in the seventh inning of what would be a 3-0 loss to Detroit with runners on first and second, none out, Sox down by a couple. If not predictable, the result of his attempt was hardly surprising.

Saltalamacchia's chopped bunt in front of the plate was quickly gloved by Tigers catcher Alex Avila, who fired to third for a force play. Soon enough, another Red Sox rally expired, the usual outcome when the Sox pitcher is John Lackey, who by now must think it less perilous to swim without a shark cage from Miami to Cuba (à la 64-year-old Diana Nyad) than subject himself to another exercise where he's offered no lifeline by his offense.

In Lackey’s last 11 starts dating to July 7, the Red Sox have scored a total of 13 runs for him in the games’ first six innings. In six of those games, the Sox have scored none. Lackey might not swim to Cuba, but he might decide to move there.

“You can’t worry about that,’’ Lackey said of the lack of run support, even though there were times Monday afternoon he was spitting out expletives like a boxer spits out his teeth after taking a shot flush on the jaw. “The other team’s pitcher is not my problem. I’ve got to go about my job the best I can.’’

Too often, though, Lackey’s labors have been lost, even when he’s producing high-quality work. The Tigers came in as baseball’s highest-scoring team (the Red Sox rank second). They had doubles in three of the first four innings, two leading off an inning. But those baserunners might as well have been wearing concrete shoes, as Lackey allowed no advance.

“I’m probably better now than I’ve ever been,’’ said Lackey, who is nearly two years removed from his November reconstructive elbow surgery.

Seeing any positives, despite the lack of results?

“I’m trying, man,’’ he said. “I’m trying hard.’’

After watching Jose Iglesias execute three double plays con pimiento, including twice when the Sox were threatening with two on and no out against Tigers pitcher Doug Fister, Sox manager John Farrell had no interest in watching his former shortstop perform any more Havana-style magic, hence the call to have Saltalamacchia bunt.

“Given the three double plays they’d turned already,’’ Farrell said, “we were looking to do anything we can to put a couple of guys in scoring position. That was something that was talked about prior to the previous at-bat. The way [Saltalamacchia] is feeling, seeing the ball at the plate, it might not have been the normal request on Salty’s part, but we’re trying to stay out of the double play.’’

The only way to do that, Farrell concluded, was to keep the ball out of Iglesias’ area code, no small task on an afternoon when the 23-year-old Cuban added a couple of clips to his highlight reel: one, when he flew parallel to the ground to avoid Mike Napoli’s takeout slide in the second, and again in the sixth, when he turned a hit-and-run ground ball into a tag-and-throw double play, somehow tagging Shane Victorino, then spinning and flipping a throw to retire Dustin Pedroia, who hit into two of the double plays.

“When people make plays like that, you can’t practice those,’’ Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. “That’s just athleticism and flexibility, agility, whatever you want to call it. You just can’t practice a play like that. If somebody tells me they practice a play like that, I’ll tell them they’re lying because that doesn’t happen.”

Saltalamacchia had hit into the other DP and taken a called third strike and was batting 3-for-19 on the homestand, so it’s understandable if Farrell decided to give up an out to advance the runners over after a Daniel Nava double (one of his three hits) and a walk to Napoli put runners on first and second in the seventh. But if the bunt was warranted, what consideration was given to calling upon a more highly skilled practitioner of the art than Salty to lay it down?

“I wouldn’t pinch hit, then bunt,’’ said Farrell, who has shown a remarkable tolerance this season for even those questions that reek of the second guess. “If he fouls it off and is down in the count, or if he gets an advantage count, 2-and-0, we’d probably let him swing away at that point. That was something discussed prior, too.’’

So the bunt it was, and when that didn’t work, the Sox found themselves in the eighth inning encountering one Bruce Rondon, a 275-pound terminator whose last five pitches to David Ortiz registered 103, 103, 102, 91-slider, 102 -- adios.

Lackey, meanwhile, was as stingy as ever, parsing out just three runs in 7 1/3 innings, but that was enough to lose the first game of the three-game set between the teams with the best records in the American League. Playing without 2012 MVP Miguel Cabrera, whose sore groin kept him out of the game but not from swaying arm in arm with three teammates on the dugout railing to “Sweet Caroline,” the Tigers broke a scoreless tie in the seventh on a single by Victor Martinez and triple to the triangle by Andy Dirks, the ball falling just out of the reach of Jacoby Ellsbury. Then Omar Infante walked, and Dirks scored while Pedroia was starting a double play.

Lackey left after a couple of singles with one out in the eighth, and Prince Fielder lined Matt Thornton’s first pitch for a sacrifice fly that made it 3-0.

Lackey is now 8-12 this season, but his ERA is 3.22, the lowest it’s ever been in a season after 25 starts. Only two big league pitchers in 2013 have fewer wins with an ERA that low after 25 starts: Pittsburgh’s A.J. Burnett (seven) and Washington’s Stephen Strasburg (six). Only one big league pitcher with an ERA equal to or better than Lackey’s has lost more games: Chris Sale of the White Sox, and he’s pitching for a last-place team.

But the player who was once vilified here for showing up teammates was freely passing out absolution Monday.

“It’s definitely not a lack of effort,’’ he said. “The boys want to get me runs. They feel pretty bad after games. I get a lot of ‘nice jobs.’ They’re grinding, but things happen.’’

The Tigers have beaten the Red Sox in four of five meetings this season, and have 19-1 Max Scherzer pitching Tuesday night against Jon Lester. They now trail the Sox by a half-game for the league’s best record, the Sox losing for just the second time in the last nine games.

The Sox were 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position (the Tigers not much better at 1-for-12), but Lackey will tell you it doesn’t take much. The Sox were shut out for the 11th time this season, curveballing Jose Veras, imported from Houston, registering the save by striking out Stephen Drew to end it. Making for one extremely frustrated man from Abilene.

“He’s a competitor,” Farrell said. “I expect him to be frustrated. Given the six times he’s been on the short end of a shutout, I think there are a lot of runs waiting to come his way.’’

BOSTON -- With a team-high 17 quality starts under his belt, Red Sox pitcher John Lackey has arguably been the most consistent pitcher on the team this season, although his win-loss record doesn't do much to match the claim.

Lackey pitched a strong 7 1/3 innings against the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday night, allowing only three runs on his way to yet another winless quality start, his ninth this season. Despite a 3.19 ERA that ranks 11th among American League starters, Lackey is 8-11 on the season.

"Sure, I would like to have more wins than I have right now but that's not the goal," Lackey said. "The goal is for the team to win games. Tonight was a great win for us, the guys came back at the end. We're trying to make the playoffs, trying to do some special things. It's not about my individual wins."

Down 3-1 after surrendering solo home runs to All-Stars Manny Machado in the third inning and Chris Davis in the sixth, Lackey grinded through seven frames before the Red Sox offense was able to tie the game on a two-run single by Dustin Pedroia. Lackey retired Machado to begin the eighth inning before being pulled at 92 pitches in favor of reliever Craig Breslow to face the left-handed Davis.

"He walks out to begin the eighth inning with the exception of a couple of pitches that found the middle of the plate, the cutter to Davis and the fastball that came back to the middle of the plate on Machado," Farrell said. "Another strong performance on his part."

In the month of August Lackey has gone 1-3 in five starts despite allowing more than three runs in an outing only once. The Red Sox scored a combined 13 runs in those games, two of which were shutouts.

"It seems like most years I've been in the league there's kind of been that guy on pretty much every staff that doesn't get quite as many runs as the other guys," Lackey said. "I've kind of been that guy."

Of the four qualified starting pitchers for the Red Sox this season, Lackey is the only one not ranked in AL's top 10 in terms of run support average per start (Ryan Dempster second, Felix Doubront third, Jon Lester 10th).

Instead, Lackey's 3.25 run support average per start has him ranked 77th out of 87 qualified pitchers.

However, the 34-year-old remains focused on the positives he has drawn from pitching so consistently this year.

"I'm just really excited, really happy, to be healthy and to be able to compete at a high level and to be able to help this team win games," Lackey said. "It's been exciting, been a lot of fun to get out there and really get after it."

BOSTON -- The calendar claims it's too early for such accoutrements, but in case the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox needed any reminders of what was at stake, the weather obliged Wednesday with a bit of a September nip in the air and, as the evening wore on, a heavy mist. Pennant race conditions.

And the Orioles and Red Sox responded to the setting, a crowd of 31,962 in the Fens treated to a riveting drama. With one bold countermove, Red Sox manager John Farrell trumped the bullpen machinations of Baltimore master strategist Buck Showalter in a 4-3, come-from-behind win for the Soggy Bottom Boys.

Farrell sparked gasps and a few grumbles when he sent Mike Carp to hit for Xander Bogaerts, the Promised Child, with two on and two out in the bottom of the eighth of a tie game. Carp, who had just four at-bats on last week's trip and did not play Tuesday night, had just three pinch hits in 15 at-bats this season.

Tommy Hunter, Baltimore's fifth pitcher of the night, tried to get a pitch in on Carp's hands, but the left-handed hitter was able to inside-out the ball just beyond the infield and just over the head of a lunging Orioles third baseman Manny Machado. The ball found open grass, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia scored easily from second with the winning run.

The prettiest 130-foot hit of Carp's career?

"Oh, definitely," Carp said. "Any time you come up with a game-winner, especially this late in the season, postseason on the line, it means a lot. I'll definitely remember this one.

"It got drowned out by the crowd. I knew it had dropped in once the crowd cheered. It's amazing when that sound hits you."

Koji Uehara then slammed the door on his former team, setting the side down in order to preserve Boston's fourth straight win, keeping them 2½ games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays, 4-1 winners over the Los Angeles Angels, in the AL East. The Sox have 28 games left, the Rays 31.

The Orioles, meanwhile, lost despite home runs by Chris Davis (No. 47) and Manny Machado (No. 12) to lose more ground in the wild-card race. They are 4½ games behind both Tampa Bay and Oakland; the O's have 31 games left.

"I thought I had it," Machado said of Carp's flare. "Just a little bit short. Jumped too early.

"I couldn't do anything different. If we would've done it all over again, we'd do the same thing, same pitch. The luck was on their side. With [Dustin] Pedroia's hit when he tied up the game. Perfect placement, he got it right between me and JJ [Hardy]. You can't have done it any better. Just luck on their side."

The Red Sox trailed 3-1, and John Lackey, who had already lost quality starts five times this season, looked headed toward a similar fate Wednesday until the seventh, when Pedroia punched a two-run single through the left side. Orioles reliever Francisco Rodriguez, who had thrown one pitch to induce an inning-ending double play from Jarrod Saltalamacchia in the seventh, gave up a double to Stephen Drew to open the seventh, and Jacoby Ellsbury beat out an infield hit.

Showalter, knowing Shane Victorino is limited to batting right-handed these days, brought in submariner Darren O'Day, and Victorino lined out to second. During the at-bat, Ellsbury, despite being hobbled after fouling a ball off his foot, stole his second base of the night and 49th of the season, and Pedroia then delivered his ground-ball single through the left side, two runners scoring.

There were two out and nobody on in the eighth when Saltalamacchia's fly ball hit high off the left-field wall for his 35th double of the season. Drew was walked intentionally before Farrell sent Carp to bat for Bogaerts, who had lined out twice and grounded into a force play in his first Fenway start.

"He gave me a handshake and said, 'Go get 'em," Carp said. "That's the way we work as a team. He wasn't upset about it. I've been in situations a few times this year where you're having a great game, you have a couple of hits, where they still hit for you. That's the way the dynamic of our team works. We have so many guys on our bench we can use in certain situations."

Lackey had thrown only 92 pitches when he was lifted with one out in the eighth, Farrell opting for left-hander Craig Breslow to face the left-handed hitting Davis, who had doubled home a run in the first, then homered into the small section of seats in the center-field triangle, just beyond the Sox's pen.

That move worked splendidly as well, Breslow striking out Davis, then retiring Adam Jones on a liner to short to end the inning.

"The one thing that he's unique with," Farrell said of Breslow, "is the ability to sink the ball in on some left-handed hitters. To keep Davis from getting extended out over the plate where his power is, he ran a couple of sinkers in there, one for the foul ball, one for the final swing and miss.

"He's always composed and he's got two or three pitches that he can go to, depending on the reactions of a previous swing. He's been a very dependable reliever for us."

Uehara is composed, too, until he has completed his executioner's song, and then the celebration begins. The Orioles can't say they regret trading away Uehara to Texas; they got slugger Davis in return, and have a 40-save closer in Jim Johnson. But for Boston, the 38-year-old Uehara is the gift that keeps on giving. A career-high 14 saves. And 21 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings, 70 batters faced in that span, only seven reaching.

Still, September lies ahead. There's a saying in Uehara's native Japan, displayed on one website, that the Soggy Bottom Boys would be wise to heed. Especially with the Orioles, the team that knocked the Sox out of the postseason on the last day of 2011, hosting the Sox for the last three games in 2013.

katte kabuto no o o shimeyo.

The translation: After victory, tighten your helmet strap.

The message: Keep your guard up until the very end.

LOS ANGELES -- Tim McCarver, the former catcher and long-time Fox broadcast analyst, once said wryly of Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, whom he caught numerous times when they both played with the Cardinals:

"Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn't score any runs."

Gibson's luck didn't always hold: In his greatest season, 1968, he lost five games by the score of 1-0.

Luck doesn't qualify for inclusion in any conversation about John Lackey's career with the Red Sox, the notable exception being the massive good fortune that comes with signing a five-year, $82.5 million deal as a free agent upon his arrival.

For three seasons after that, a lot of hard knocks: bad pitching, worse elbow, an entire season lost to surgery and a fan base inclined to hold him at arm's length.

Now this season, one in which Lackey in reshaped form and focus has reverted to the pitcher who was revered as a big-game pitcher in his previous incarnation with the Angels. Once every five days, he has taken the mound as Boston's most dependable pitcher. In 18 of his 23 starts, he has held the opposition to three runs or fewer. On merit, he should rank as one of baseball's big winners this season.

But after Friday night's 2-0 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Lackey is 8-11, a loser of five of his past six decisions. He gave up three hits and did not walk a batter in his first complete game since Sept. 10, 2009. But one of those hits was a two-run home run by Hanley Ramirez, the former Sox shortstop batting cleanup in the midst of one of history's greatest runs -- the Dodgers 46-10 since June 22 and 29-5 since the All-Star break.

The Sox have been shut out 10 times this season. Lackey has been the losing pitcher in five of them, in games started by J.A. Happ, Jered Weaver, Chris Tillman, Brett Oberholtzer and now Ricky Nolasco. Four of those shutout defeats have come in the past six weeks.

This has become old hat for the Dodgers. This was their 18th shutout win this season. It has also become part of a distressingly familiar pattern for Lackey: pitch well, lose, endure questions about how well you pitched and lost, while trying not to bite your tongue in half as you resist the temptation to vent.

"It's frustrating, you know, when one pitch can decide a game -- it's true," he said.

Lackey not only maintained his equilibrium, he even managed a small joke when asked about Nolasco, who limited the Sox to singles by Dustin Pedroia with two out in the first and Stephen Drew with one out in the fifth.

"He did great, obviously," Lackey said. "Punched me out a couple of times."

Lackey could swing the bat growing up in Abilene, Texas; in the American League, not so much. He has four hits in 41 career at-bats with 13 whiffs. As a barometer of Nolasco's effectiveness, there are probably more telling measures, like Jacoby Ellsbury, who came into Friday night's game having hit safely in all 15 of Boston's interleague games this season -- batting .438 -- but failed to get the ball out of the infield against Nolasco, who, like Lackey, did not walk a batter and struck out six.

Lackey finished the night with a 3.17 ERA, which ranks 11th best in the American League and a far cry from the 6.41 he posted in 28 starts in 2011 before shutting it down for postseason elbow surgery.

"I want to win the game," he said. "I didn't come here for ERA. I came here to try to win a championship."

The Dodgers' other hits off Lackey were singles by former teammate Carl Crawford, who had lined a hit to right and stolen second during Ramirez's at-bat.

"He was trying to quick-pitch me," Ramirez said of the 1-and-2 pitch Lackey threw him. "I made a good swing, and I was lucky the ball went out."

The ball cleared the center-field fence. Lackey luck. The worst kind.

LOS ANGELES -- Nothing has changed.

Carl Crawford is still better at losing games for the Red Sox than winning them.

Crawford, who tormented the Sox for eight seasons with the Tampa Bay Rays, then tortured them with his subpar performance during two injury-filled seasons in Boston, made good Friday night on his vow to make the Sox as miserable as he was during the Sox chapter of his career.

Crawford, who said he was pointing to this series ever since he was shipped out as damaged goods (surgically repaired elbow) in last August's megatrade to the Los Angeles Dodgers, singled twice, stole two bases and scored ahead of Hanley Ramirez's fourth-inning home run in L.A.'s 2-0 win over the Sox before a crowd of 50,240 at Dodger Stadium.

If this was a potential World Series preview -- the Dodgers are winning at an ungodly rate (46-10 since June 22, 29-5 since the All-Star break), while the Red Sox lead the AL East -- then the prevailing theme became pretty obvious: It's all about the pitching. And right now, no one is pitching better than the Dodgers.

Right-hander Ricky Nolasco, who began the season as the Opening Day pitcher for the Miami Marlins and was acquired only after the Dodgers' supposedly deep rotation was decimated by injuries -- including season-ending surgery for former Sox right-hander Josh Beckett -- shut out the Sox on two singles over eight innings.

Only one Sox batter reached second base. That was in the fifth, when Daniel Nava was hit by a pitch and Stephen Drew singled to right with one out. But the next batter, Will Middlebrooks, grounded sharply into an around-the-horn double play started by third baseman Juan Uribe, and Nolasco set down the last nine Sox batters he faced in order.

Closer Kenley Jansen pitched the ninth, struck out pinch hitter Mike Carp and Jacoby Ellsbury and retired Shane Victorino on a popup for his 22nd save.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to beat those guys," Crawford said in a postgame interview conducted on the field.

Nolasco did not walk a batter and struck out six to outduel John Lackey, who gave the Sox eight innings of three-hit, no-walk pitching but was beaten by Ramirez's two-out drive that cleared the center-field fence.

Ramirez, of course, also played for the Red Sox and was traded to the Marlins in a circuitous bit of business in which the Sox acquired Beckett, who, in his second season with Boston, pitched the Red Sox to the World Series title in 2007.

The night abounded with cross-pollination, beginning with the ceremonial first pitch, which was thrown by Reggie Smith, who broke in with the Red Sox, starred for the Dodgers and lives in Southern California.

Crawford hit leadoff for the Dodgers, with Adrian Gonzalez in the 3-hole and Ramirez cleanup. Tim Federowicz was the Dodgers catcher; he was a Sox prospect who wound up with the Dodgers in a three-way deal that netted the Red Sox the useless Erik Bedard. Victorino was originally drafted by the Dodgers, was then traded to Philadelphia and played last season with the Dodgers before the Crawford deal made him expendable. He signed as a free agent with the Sox.

The Dodgers' assistant hitting coach, meanwhile, is John Valentin, one of the most popular Sox players of the ‘90s. "Carl's played great here," Valentin said of Crawford. "Boston is a tough place to play."

BOSTON -- On the verge of their first four-game losing streak this season, the Red Sox turned to starting pitcher John Lackey on Saturday afternoon to bury any thoughts that the American League’s best team was beginning to struggle during the dog days of August.

And bury those thoughts is exactly what Lackey did.

Lackey produced a season-high 15 ground ball outs against the New York Yankees Saturday on the way to his eighth win of the season. The right-hander went 6⅔ innings, allowing only one run to snap a personal four-game losing streak.

“It’s nice, for sure,” Lackey said. “We needed a win today, especially as a team more than anything. That was nice to get it.”

Lackey made his mark in the game early, getting both Brett Gardner and Ichiro Suzuki to ground out to him before a Robinson Cano grounder to second baseman Dustin Pedroia ended a clean first inning. In all, the Yankees' top three hitters went 0-for-9 against Lackey, all nine outs coming via the ground ball.

“Too good of hitters to go one way about it,” Lackey said. “You’ve got to make a lot of good pitches; you’ve got to bury it up. Guys behind [in the field] played really good, made some nice plays for me.”

It wasn’t just the guys behind him that made good plays. Lackey himself recorded five assists on the day, the most by a Red Sox pitcher since Steve Avery recorded six in one start in 1998. Much like fellow starter and 2012 AL Gold Glove winner Jake Peavy, Lackey took pride in his strong defensive role.

“They’re important outs, especially early on," Lackey said. "It was a 0-0 ballgame for three or four innings there, so any sort of mistake can kind of put you in a tight spot.”

In both the second and fifth inning, Lackey found himself in a tight spot after putting the first two batters on base. However, a double-play popup to shortstop Stephen Drew in the second and three straight ground balls in the fifth led to only one run on the day for the Yankees, who had averaged almost 10 runs a game in their previous four contests.

“He set the tone for us, particularly in the fifth inning after we scored the three runs,” manager John Farrell said. “He’s in a second-and-third situation with no outs and really minimized the damage. I think, to best and briefly describe it, he set the tone for us from the mound today, which we needed.”

Catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia felt the same.

“That’s just Lackey and his competitiveness, going out there and never giving in. As far as I’m concerned, he won us that game. A lot of big innings that could have gone the other way, but he made some big pitches, kept them off the board and gave our offense a chance to score.”

BOSTON -- If anyone was throwing beanballs Saturday, it wasn't John Lackey. It was Alex Rodriguez's lawyer.

The Red Sox pitcher earlier in the week had expressed his disgust that A-Rod was playing while his suspension was being appealed, leading to speculation that maybe he'd have a necktie for the Yankees' third baseman. But the Sox right-hander did not allow his focus to wander in Boston's 6-1 win over the Yankees.

While A-Rod's lawyer was launching head-high fastballs at the Yankees, claiming in a New York Times interview that the club played Rodriguez while he was hurt in hopes of hastening an end to his career, Lackey stayed on course, which on this day meant inducing the Yankees to pound baseballs into the ground with regularity. The Yankees grounded into 15 outs in the 6 2/3 innings worked by Lackey, who fielded five comebackers like a right-handed Jim Kaat, the lefty pitcher who won 16 Gold Gloves before retiring to the broadcast booth.

After a couple of three-error nights, the Sox defense was flawless Saturday, with shortstop Stephen Drew turning a pop fly into shallow center into a double play and second baseman Dustin Pedroia triggering one of the day's biggest cheers when he robbed Rodriguez of a hit with a diving stop in the sixth.

While Lackey kept the Yankees at bay, allowing just a run on six hits and three walks, the Red Sox, who have had a hellacious time scoring runs of late (14 in their last five games), broke through against Hiroki Kuroda, not the ideal guy to break out of a funk against. Kuroda came into the game with an 0.94 ERA since the start of July and in five of his seven starts during that span posted only zeroes.

But the Sox broke through with three runs in the fourth, a double lined on one hop into the right-field seats by David Ortiz the opening salvo and a throwing error by first baseman Lyle Overbay providing the break the Sox needed. Throw in a surprise double steal with Mike Carp at the front end, a play that might have startled even umpire Bill Welke, who failed to acknowledge that Carp had been tagged out by Rodriguez, and singles by Will Middlebrooks and Jacoby Ellsbury and the Sox had three runs.

They added two more in the sixth on a double by Daniel Nava, an RBI single by Jarrod Saltalamacchia after a prolonged duel with Kuroda and an RBI double by Ellsbury, who had three hits on the day.

Ortiz then blasted his 24th home run off Yankees reliever Adam Warren in the seventh to make it 6-1.

The win broke a three-game losing streak and preserved the Sox's distinction as the only team in the big leagues without a losing streak of four games or more. They also were assured of awakening Sunday still in sole possession of first place in the American League East. They began Saturday a game up on the Tampa Bay Rays, who were playing Toronto on Saturday night in the Trop.