The Tigers are struggling because of poor pitching, and the Red Sox won Tuesday because of Dice-K and company coming through.

Some solid performances were also turned in Tuesday, from Pawtucket, and Portland.

In Pawtucket, Chris Smith (promoted from Portland to fill in for the injured Bartolo Colon) pitched four shutout innings (2 H, 1 BB, 7 K).

Abe Alvarez recovered from a rocky appearance in his last game to throw 2.1 shutout innings (0H, 2 K)

Speaking of Pawtucket, it was shame the Tuesday's game was at noon, preventing four memebers of the team from receiving their World Series rings at Fenway (Bobby Kielty, Brandon Moss, Jeff Bailey and Devern Hansack all qualified for a ring).

Portland lost its first game of the year, 2-1 in 11 innings, but not because of the pitching.

Justin Masterson continues to show that he may be too good for Double-A. He pitched four scoreless inning, allowing 2 hits and 1 hit-batter.

Know when to tell Masterson's sinker is working. Of the 15 outs he recorded, 8 were by groundouts, 7 by strikeouts.

Relievers Chad Rhoades and Hunter Jones both got all their outs by strikeout (Rhoades 4, Jones 3). Jose Vaquedano remained unscored upon after 2 1/3 more scoreless innings.

In Lancaster, second-baseman Chih-Hsien Chiang had a unique line in the boxscore: 2 for 9. But it was Chiang's two-run single in the top of the 18th inning that paced a three-run rally for a 6-3 win over Island Empire.

The game, which was continued from late Monday night, officially lasted 5 hours, 41 minutes. Chiang, 20, signed with the Red Sox out of Tawain in 2005.

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