Papi's slam gives Sox win

David Ortiz drove a grand slam as the top five hitters in the Red Sox lineup combined for 11 hits and 11 RBI in a 12-5 trouncing of Kansas City. Boston actually fell behind 3-0 on Eric Hosmer's three-run homer in the first for KC, but Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia led off the bottom of the inning with back-to-back blasts for the Sox. This extended Pedroia's hitting streak to 24 games, just 10 shy of the Red Sox record. Then in the second, Ells walked in a run, Pedey drove a sac fly, and Adrian Gonzalez had an RBI groundout for Boston, giving them a 5-3 lead. In the fourth, the Sox busted the game open with an RBI from Yamaico Navarro and the slam from Papi. Lackey won his fourth game in a row with the victory. A-Gone is now batting .351 and has 87 RBI after a three-hit, three-RBI night. I love that these Sox can hit a ton, and their pitching isn't too bad. I mean, Dan Wheeler, who started with his ERA above 6, has it down to 4.67 for Boston. And Lackey has bounced back from a bad start to get over .500, 9-8. And they've been winning a ton, going 19-4 over 23 games to stretch their lead over New York to 3 games in the East. Hopefully they can keep it up today with Josh Beckett pitching.

Trivia
With last night's 16-hit performance, the Sox have now garnered 10 hits or more in 11 straight games.