Red Sox Live Blog: Backed by 17-Hit Attack, Tim Wakefield Earns 199th Career Win as Red Sox Sweep Mariners

Final, Red Sox 12-8: The Red Sox have won nine in a row at Fenway Park, their longest such run in nearly two years, and the Mariners have dropped 15 in a row, their longest losing streak in…forever.

Seattle's run of futility takes the club to New York, where the Yankees will be waiting to try to extend it.

Not that they aren't compassionate people, but the Red Sox could not care less. Now 17-3 in their last 20 games, they'll forge ahead to Monday, when Jon Lester returns from the DL to open a four-game series against Kansas City.

We will be at the park early to bring you all the updates leading up to that one. First pitch is 7:10 p.m.

End 8th, Red Sox 12-7: Josh Reddick made a bid to become the fourth Red Sox player with three hits today, hammering a pitch that was caught on a line by second baseman Dustin Ackley.

That ends the eighth and gives Kyle Weiland his first relief appearance as a major leaguer.

Mid 8th, Red Sox 12-7: This is the most runs the Mariners have scored since June 12. And still they're down five. What a cruel game this can be.

Seattle is now three outs away from its 15th straight loss. Looks like Kyle Weiland is warming in the pen and will get a chance to close this one out.

Weiland figures to be sent down tomorrow when Jon Lester is activated.

End 7th, Red Sox 12-7: Terry Francona did not have a concrete answer as to why his team did so much damage in the seventh inning this year.

He did admit to seeing situations where his team has a lead and the opponent is "not going to their top-tier guys."

Well, Josh Lueke entered this one with a 14.73 ERA, so he is decidedly not top-tier right now. Still, Lueke was able to lower his ERA after allowing only one run in the seventh.

Base hits by Josh Reddick and Jarrod Saltalamacchia set it up. One out later, Jacoby Ellsbury blooped a single to left for his 19th RBI in 19 games.

Mid 7th, Red Sox 11-7: Alfredo Aceves gets a pair of outs in the air and we head to the bottom of the seventh, when the Red Sox will score 57 times.

3:49 p.m.: Tim Wakefield is still in great shape to pick up his 199th win and he did notch that 2,000th K with the Red Sox, but his start ends on a bit of a sour note.

Wakefield gave up three straight singles with one out in the seventh before Brendan Ryan smacked a grand slam over the Green Monster.

Ryan had gone 158 games without homering, dating back to last season. He has two homers in a week and has flirted with a few more in this series.

Wakefield's line: 6.1 IP, 10 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HB, 2 HR.

Alfredo Aceves is on in relief.

End 6th, Red Sox 11-3: The numbers are just getting to be ridiculous with this Red Sox team, especially as they steamroll through this soft portion of the schedule.

Moments after Tim Wakefield picked up his 2,000th strikeout with the Red Sox, Dustin Pedroia extended his hitting streak to 21 games with a double to begin the sixth.

Adrian Gonzalez followed with an RBI single. It's Gonzalez's ML-leading 82nd RBI and makes him 9-for-15 since that 2-for-24 slide that had everyone wondering whether the Home Run Derby had screwed him up.

Yamaico Navarro has taken over for Kevin Youkilis at third base. Wakefield is still out there, his pitch count at 84. With Jon Lester on a bit of a short leash tomorrow, the club will get all it can out of Wake, even with the sizable lead.

Mid 6th, Red Sox 10-3: Tim Wakefield just picked up his 2,000th strikeout as a member of the Red Sox. Roger Clemens is the only other pitcher to reach that mark in a Boston uniform.

The board displayed the milestone for the fans, who acknowledged Wakefield with a great ovation. David Ortiz met Wake at the top step of the dugout and gave him a big hug.

The ovation built until Wakefield went out for a curtain call. Lots of love for the knuckleballer today, and there will be more reasons to cheer him going forward as many more milestones await.

End 5th, Red Sox 10-3: And the beat goes on. This offense has produced 10 runs for the 14th time in 46 games.

Tim Wakefield can just put it in cruise control right now and set his sights on win No. 200. He is in line to get a chance at it (provided this one doesn't dramatically changed) in Chicago next weekend.

Too bad it might not happen at home.

3:15 p.m.: Things have gotten away from the Mariners here in the fifth.

Aaron Laffey came on to face the three straight lefties in the Red Sox lineup, and all three got hits.

David Ortiz's was just an infield nubber that Laffey fielded but had nowhere to go. Carl Crawford followed with a two-run single, improving to 3-for-3. Josh Reddick hit a wall-ball double to drive in a run.

Facing a right-handed hitter, Laffey didn't fare any better. Jarrod Saltalamacchia just lined a single the other way to plate both Crawford and Reddick. Four batters faced, four hits against Laffey.

All of a sudden it's 10-3 and the Mariners have turned to Jamey Wright.

3:06 p.m.: Eric Wedge comes with the hook before his young starter loses it.

Michael Pineda gets the first out of the fifth before a single and a walk. Here comes Aaron Laffey to face David Ortiz and to try to keep this a manageable game.

Mid 5th, Red Sox 5-3: Because of his rather basic delivery, Tim Wakefield gets guys on the old fake-to-third-throw-to-first pickoff move more than others.

The casual lift of the left leg looks the same if he goes to home or to third. Someone with a more dramatic delivery cannot pull that off nearly as much.

It worked in the fifth, and may have helped Wakefield limit some damage.

After issuing a one-out walk to Franklin Gutierrez and a single to Ichiro Suzuki, Wakefield picked off Suzuki on the move, stepping toward Gutierrez and then spinning to see the Seattle speedster taking off for second.

Brendan Ryan followed with a wall-ball double to score Gutierrez, but it might be a one-run game if not for the pickoff.

End 4th, Red Sox 5-2: Like Tim Wakefield, Michael Pineda has allowed just one man to reach since the first inning.

Pineda has thrown 78 pitches. The Mariners have been careful with their young righty, and he has reached the 100-pitch mark just five times in 19 starts, topping out at 106.

Mid 4th, Red Sox 5-2: Since a single that ended the first because a Mariners runner was thrown out at home, Tim Wakefield has retired nine of 10.

This one had the makings of a slugfest, and it still has time to become one, but both pitchers have settled in a bit.

End 3rd, Red Sox 5-2: A somewhat comical moment in the bottom of the third.

After singling with two outs, Carl Crawford broke for second. He was thrown out by Miguel Olivo, but the ball popped out of shortstop Brendan Ryan's glove.

It goes in the books as a caught stealing and an error on Ryan.

Anyway, with the out call being made initially, Crawford began to walk back to the dugout and members of the grounds crew, which was set to rake the infield after the inning, started to run onto the field.

Crawford got back to the bag in time, the men with the rakes raced into canvas alley and we pressed on, only to see Josh Reddick strike out to end the inning.

Crawford is hitting .364 (8-for-22) since coming off the disabled list.

Mid 3rd, Red Sox 5-2: The last team to lose more than 14 straight games was the Kansas City Royals in 2005. They dropped 19 in a row.

The watch may be on if this one doesn't change dramatically. Seattle gets a two-out double in the third, but that's it. Tim Wakefield is six outs from being eligible for a win, which would of course be No. 199.

Guess we're getting ahead of ourselves. Just so hard to envision the M's mounting much of a challenge with the way they are playing.

It's amazing to think that about three weeks ago some people were wondering if Seattle might be a buyer at the trade deadline.

End 2nd, Red Sox 5-2: With the help of another quality play by shortstop Brendan Ryan, Michael Pineda follows up his difficult first inning with a perfect second.

Ryan, who has played a very good series and should get more publicity for the defensive game he has, charged a Dustin Pedroia chopper, fielded with a bare hand and threw across his body to nip Pedroia.

That's the second time Ryan has done that to Pedroia in this series.

Mid 2nd, Red Sox 5-2: Michael Pineda must be shaking his head. He labors through a five-run first, and gets to sit down for about six seconds.

Tim Wakefield just motored through the second with a pair of strikeouts and a weak fly to center. It took Wakefield all of 11 pitches to retire the side.

End 1st, Red Sox 5-2: Michael Pineda threw 22 of his 33 first-inning pitches for strikes. Many of them were extremely meaty.

The Red Sox just treated Pineda like a 22-year-old rookie facing the best offense in baseball on the road (Blake Beavans notwithstanding in this scenario).

It began with a Jacoby Ellsbury double. One out later, Adrian Gonzalez drove in Ellsbury with a hard single up the middle.

Kevin Youkilis then took Pineda over the Green Monster to make it 3-2. David Ortiz singled off the wall, Carl Crawford doubled off of it and Jarrod Saltalamacchia drove them in with a base hit to right.

Every one of the six hits were on the nose. Pineda is not fooling a soul, and he has now given up 17 earned runs in his last 10 1/3 innings of work.

2:01 p.m.: The Red Sox are absolutely teeing off on All-Star rookie Michael Pineda. I'll just leave it at that for those of you not watching…build up the suspense.

Mid 1st, Mariners 2-0: There aren't a lot of guys that can kill you in this Seattle lineup. That much has been established.

One of the few who can is Miguel Olivo, who hammered his team-leading 14th home run in the first. It came one out after Tim Wakefield hit Brendan Ryan with a pitch.

Wakefield, who had a rocky outing last week in Baltimore, nearly served up another bomb when Justin Smoak followed with a wall-scraping double.

Mike Carp then followed with a hard single to right. Cannot blame the Mariners for trying to send Smoak based on the situation and their inability to put up many crooked numbers, but he was out by a mile at home on a strong throw by Josh Reddick.

Terry Francona this morning on Reddick's play in right field: "The more he'll be out there, the better. He's fast enough, he's got plenty of arm. There are some quirks out there that J.D. [Drew] makes look really easy that will take some time with Red. But he's a good outfielder."

1:38 p.m.: It would not surprise me if Chone Figgins is on the verge of being dealt, or already has been.

Figgins was just scratched from the Mariners lineup. Here is the new batting order against Tim Wakefield, who is about to throw his first pitch:

Ichiro Suzuki, RF
Brendan Ryan, SS
Dustin Ackley, 2B
Miguel Olivo, C
Justin Smoak, 1B
Adam Kennedy, 3B
Mike Carp, LF
Jack Cust, DH
Franklin Gutierrez, CF

12:35 p.m.: Crazy stat I just tracked down. Since the dawn of the wild card era, there has never been one time that the deficit in the wild card race was more than four games after play on July 23 (sorry for those who read this minutes ago…I forgot the date, which makes all the difference).

Entering Sunday, both leagues have margins of five games or more in the wild card. This could alter things approaching the trade deadline if many of the teams that have fallen back now consider themselves sellers.

Look for an extended look at this on the site in a bit.

As for the Red Sox, they may not need to worry about such things. Their three-game lead in the AL East is a season high, and there just isn't much to be concerned about right now.

Of course, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz remain sidelined, but both expect to have big days Monday. Buchholz is still on track to throw from the mound, the first time he will have done so since going on the DL. He may need to do so a couple of times before the club could map out a rehab start and then look to get Buchholz back at some point after the trade deadline.

Lester, meanwhile, is completely pain free as he prepares to start in the Monday night opener against the Kansas City Royals. His work load will be monitored, and do not expect him to go much past 80 pitches, but the injury is one that often has no lingering effects. That seems as if it will be the case with Lester.

"He's come through this about as well as he would hope," said manager Terry Francona. "He was completely pain free when he started throwing, and that's what we wanted. Now it's just a matter of building up endurance. We're not going to let a guy throw 120 [pitches] first time out. We don't want to do that. So you have to balance trying to win a game and bringing him along to where he can get on a roll."