Red Sox Blow Late Inning Lead

The Boston Red Sox let a game slip away, one they wanted badly.

With their bullpen blowing a late-inning lead, they ruined a solid performance by starter Clay Buchholz and missed a chance to take over first place in the AL East.

Believe it or not, it could have been so much worse.

Asdrubal Cabrera's two-out RBI double in the eighth inning - the latest big hit delivered by Cleveland's shortstop - rallied the Indians to a 3-2 win Monday night over the Red Sox, who lost second baseman Dustin Pedroia in the eighth inning with a left foot injury.

However, following the game, the team got encouraging news on Pedroia, who fell over second base while trying to go to third in the eighth.

"It's kind of like a stinger," said Pedroia, who was examined by an Indians team physician. "It took a little while to get the feeling back in my leg. It stinks, man."

Manager Terry Francona will stick with his previous plan and have his scrappy All-Star second baseman, who only played in 75 games last season before having surgery on his foot, sit out Tuesday.

"He's OK," Francona said. "He went past second and slipped on the bag and turned his ankle. He had some numbness going up his leg. Being prudent, we got him out of there. Because of what happened to him in the past, we all probably held our breath a little bit."

Pedroia hurt his foot - the one he had surgery on in September - when he fell awkwardly trying to advance on Adrian Gonzalez's single to right. He scrambled on his belly back to the base safely. Pedroia laid with his face in the dirt as a team trainer and Francona jogged out to check on the 2008 AL MVP.

Red Sox Nation braced for the worst.

Pedroia had a screw surgically inserted into his foot last year. He fractured it when he fouled a ball off in June and missed nearly two months. He returned for only two games before being placed back on the disabled list for the remainder of the season.

Cabrera, who went 5 for 5 with two homers and five RBIs on Sunday, drove his double off reliever Daniel Bard (1-4) to the wall in left field, scoring Michael Brantley and helping the Indians win their fourth straight and improve to 19-4 at home.

Brantley tied it with an RBI single off Bard.

"Both pitches were right where I wanted them," Bard said. "Cabrera's hitting pretty much everything right now."

The Red Sox have dropped five in a row at Cleveland.

Cabrera also homered in the fourth, his third homer in two days.

Joe Smith (2-1) got one out in the eighth, and closer Chris Perez got out of a first-and-third situation in the ninth by getting speedy Carl Crawford, one of the toughest players in baseball to double up, to bounce into a game-ending double play for his 13th save.

"Who would have thought that you would get a double play on Carl Crawford?" asked Indians manager Manny Acta, who had to watch the game on a TV adjacent to Cleveland's dugout after being ejected in the eighth. "These guys always feel like they have a chance to win."

Trailing 2-1 and being held in check by Buchholz, the Indians came up with some more late-inning magic.

They tied it when Jack Hannahan singled, pinch-runner Adam Everett moved up on a groundout and scored on Brantley's two-out single. The Indians then took the lead on Cabrera's double, yet another dramatic moment for them at home.

Cleveland became the first major league team to reach 30 wins, and the Indians gave a national TV audience a firsthand glimpse of what they've been doing all season.

Crawford homered for the Red Sox, who lost for just the second time in 10 games.

Buchholz allowed two runs and four hits in 7 1-3 innings, but Bard couldn't hold back the Indians.

Boston was making its second visit to Cleveland this season. The Red Sox were swept in a three-game series in early April, dropping them to 0-6. But they've recovered from the awful start and are finally playing like the team many predicted would win it all in 2011.

Just not against the Indians.

A major, $142 million-over-seven-years disappointment so far with the Red Sox, Crawford snapped a 1-all tie in the fifth with just his second homer. He turned on a 1-1 pitch from Justin Masterson, driving it over the wall in right for his first homer since April 27.