A SATURDAY SWEEP

What a day! The Red Sox took both ends of the day-night doubleheader with Milwaukee and pulled back into a tie for first place with Tampa. Yep, it's always good to get back into Fenway Park.

The first game featured the pitching of Dice-K Matsuzaka, who improved to 7-0 on the season. Milwaukee managed to push across a pair of unearned runs on the Boston starter, but got little else. Matsuzaka allowed seven hits in 6.2 innings of work, but his six strikeouts helped him escape any significant trouble. He lowered his season era to 2.15 and is tied with Joe Saunders of the Los Angeles Angels for wins. The Brewers were held scoreless by the Boston starter until there were two outs in the seventh inning.

David Ortiz is well past his early season toubles and hit his eighth homer of the season in the second inning against Jeff Suppan. Ortiz drove a Suppan pitch the opposite way and deposited the ball into the Green Monster seats in left centerfield. It was a three-run homer for Ortiz and it gave Boston a 4-0 lead. That drove Big Papi's RBI count up to 32 on the season.

The Sox victory brought and end to their four-game losing streak.

The night game saw the Red Sox build an early lead only to see it slip away late. However, the Red Sox were not interested in getting back into the loss column this soon. Trailing 6-5 in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Red Sox went ahead for good on an Ortiz RBI ground out and a Kevin Youkilis blooper down the rightfield line good for a 7-6 lead.

With closer jonathan Papelbon shut down for the evening after picking up his 12th save of the season in the first game, Boston turned to Javy Lopez and Mike Timlin to close this one out. Lopez got a scoreless eighth and Timlin looked like he was 30 years old in delivering a 1-2-3 ninth to slam the door shut on the Brewers.

Mike Lowell was the hitting star as he delivered a double and homer to drive in the Red Sox first four runs of the game. The Red Sox took a 5-0 lead with an unearned run in the fifth before Milwakee roared back. Starter Tim Wakefield was charged with three runs in the sixth inning and reliever Craig Hansen gave up three unearned in the seventh as the Brewers took a 6-5 lead. Hansen picked up the win as the Sox recaptured the lead soon after.

At times the Sox looked great and at other times they looked sloppy. But two wins in the same day are two wins no matter how pretty or ugly they look. After a four-game losing streak Saturday proved to be a positive day for the Red Sox. Tampa's loss to St. Louis allowed the Sox to make up a game and a half in the standings and they are now tied for the division lead. Red Sox Nation is now hoping for a few more games of smooth sailing to completely wash away the stink of the previous road trip.