Late Ortiz homer helps Red Sox stop slide at 10

It didn’t look very promising early on, but the Red Sox snapped their 10-game losing streak with an 8-6 victory over the Braves this afternoon at Turner Field in Atlanta.

Clay Buchholz put the Red Sox in an early hole by allowing six runs on four hits and a career-high eight walks over three innings before being pulled. With a 7.02 ERA through 10 starts, he continues to be a complete mess. While Ervin Santana was handed an early 6-1 advantage by Buchholz and the Braves’ offense, the Red Sox came storming back in the fifth inning with a two-run double from Dustin Pedroia and a game-tying three-run home run from David Ortiz.

After a rain delay of one hour and 26 minutes, Ortiz delivered a go-ahead sacrifice fly in the seventh inning and A.J. Pierzynski followed with an RBI single to provide some insurance. The bullpen was huge for Boston today, as Burke Badenhop, Chris Capuano, Edward Mujica, Junichi Tazawa, Andrew Miller, and Koji Uehara combined for six scoreless innings to lock down the victory.

The win was Boston’s first since way back on May 14. The defending World Series champions now stand at 21-29 on the year, 7 1/2 games back of the first-place Blue Jays in the American League East.

- DJ Short, Hardball Talk, NBC Sports