Blue Jays finally win at Fenway Park

Booming bats and booming skies helped the Toronto Blue Jays win for the first time this season at Fenway Park.

Aaron Hill, Rod Barajas and Jose Bautista homered as the Blue Jays beat the hometown Red Sox 11-5 in a rain-shortened, seven-inning showdown on Monday night.

Boston had one run in and two men aboard with nobody out in the seventh when the rain halted play, and the game was called after a 62-minute delay.

"It looked like we were going to continue to swing the bats," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "But we also got ourselves into a position where we didn't want to be in."  

It marked the fourth win in a row for the Blue Jays (73-84), but the first at Boston in seven tries this season.

"It is nice to get a win here, finally," Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston said. "I have always thought it is tough to manage here, too.

"You never know when you have enough runs for this place."

Toronto starter Scott Richmond won his second straight start on the heels of a 10-game winless string.

Richmond (8-10), from North Vancouver, was charged with four runs — three on homers — and six hits with two walks and three strikeouts over six innings.

"I'm trying to finish strong," he said. "I have never been in a slump like this before.

"After I got all those runs, it was just plain and simple — pound the [strike] zone."

Kevin Youkilis homered twice and David Ortiz belted a solo shot off the rookie right-hander, who has been raked for 10 home runs this month.

The Red Sox (91-65), losers in their last four, lead the Texas Rangers for the American League wild card by six games with six to play.

"We're in a pretty good place," Red Sox catcher Victor Martinez said. "Let's see what happens."

Boston was forced to scratch scheduled starter Josh Beckett at the last minute because of mild back spasms and handed the ball to rookie right-hander Michael Bowden.

"It is just Josh's upper back," Francona said. "It has been there for a while, so we just need to try to use good judgment."

Making his eighth major-league appearance, Bowden (0-1) was pounded for seven runs on seven hits and one walk with three strikeouts in three innings pitched.

"It is inexcusable," he said. "They could have told me at 7:05 and I should have been able to put forth a better effort than I did tonight.

"It is just a terrible feeling going out there and letting the team down and giving up that many runs so early."

Hill puts Blue Jays in flight

Toronto opened the scoring in the top of the first inning as Hill cleared the Green Monster in left field with a solo homer, his team-high 35th this season.

Adam Lind singled and Vernon Wells doubled to bring up Edwin Encarnacion, who stroked a run-scoring single.

Lyle Overbay delivered Wells and Encarnacion with a two-run double — Toronto's fifth straight hit — to make it 4-0.

Boston halved the deficit in the bottom of the inning as Martinez singled and Youkilis homered to left off Richmond.

Barajas put the Blue Jays up 7-3 with a three-run blast to left off Bowden in the fifth inning, but Richmond surrendered a solo homer to Youkilis in the home half.

Hunter Jones relieved Bowden and yielded a leadoff single to John MacDonald and a two-run homer to Bautista before retiring a batter.

The Blue Jays reached double digits in scoring on MacDonald's RBI sacrifice fly in the fifth inning.

Bautista then singled off the scoreboard to score Barajas with Toronto's 11th run.

Ortiz homered off Richmond in the sixth inning, and Dustin Pedroia's RBI double in the seventh trimmed it to 11-5 before the skies opened.