With a little help from Franklin Morales, the Red Sox escaped some more trouble in the seventh inning to maintain their lead at three runs.
Having wasted a leadoff single from Adrian Gonzalez, the Sox entered the bottom of the seventh with the lead still at 7-4. There, John Lackey ran into some small trouble, giving up a leadoff single to Endy Chavez. While he would get the next two batters out, Terry Francona thought better of letting him pitch to Josh Hamilton, calling instead on Franklin Morales.
The crucial at bat started out fairly poorly, with Morales appearing wild, and falling behind 2-0. Morales fought back to a 2-2 count, however, and on the fifth pitch of the at bat, Morales lined out to Carl Crawford to end the threat.