Red Sox Vs. Orioles: Vladimir Guerrero The Hero As Baltimore Wins Nailbiter

The sense of impending, inevitable doom that one figures the Baltimore Orioles often feel when they go up against the Boston Red Sox was most definitely there in the later innings Wednesday night. But the Orioles shook it off and got themselves a dramatic 5-4 win in the second game of a three-game series.

For seven innings, this was easy. Jeremy Guthrie was up there shutting the Red Sox down, while the Orioles took the lead against Josh Beckett with back-to-back home runs in the fourth from Luke Scott and Adam Jones. A Brian Roberts sacrifice fly in the fifth made it 4-0 Baltimore, and that's where the game stood in the top of the eighth.

Then the Red Sox battled all the way back against relievers Jeremy Accardo, Clay Rapada and Koji Uehara. The first two batters reached against Accardo. Adrian Gonzalez singled home a run against Rapada to cut into the lead. Then Uehara came into the game and promptly allowed a game-tying three-run home run to Kevin Youkilis. No more damage would be done in the frame, but suddenly it was knotted 4-4, and the Red Sox had all the momentum.

The O's got it back in the bottom half. Facing Daniel Bard, both Nick Markakis and Derrek Lee singled and advanced on a passed ball. Markakis was then thrown out trying to score on a ball that got away from Jason Varitek, but Vladimir Guerrero came through with an RBI single up the middle that put the Orioles in front 5-4.

With the same score, Buck Showalter handed the ball to Kevin Gregg to work the ninth, and he did just that by going 1-2-3 and picking up his fourth save of the season.