The Red Sox win. Finally, after seven long losses, the Red Sox have put together nine acceptable innings of baseball and left the field with a win in the books.

It's been an excruciating run, and even this game was close, but beggars cannot be choosers, and this victory is like a drink of water to a man stuck seven days in the desert.

The first half certainly did not speak of a change of pace. The Sox wasted three significant opportunities, with leadoff baserunners in the first and second (the latter a double) and Jose Iglesias actually managing to get on the board with a double of his own in the fifth. Meanwhile, Jon Lester had surrendered a run on a leadoff and two-out hit in the first, and then two more on back-to-back shots in the third.

As with other recently, Lester managed to pull back a difficult beginning to manage a decent start on the whole, but the real difference this time was that the Sox finally scored a few runs. Four, to be exact, and all in the sixth. Dustin Pedroia extended his hitting streak with a leadoff single, Jacoby Ellsbury followed in kind, and Cody Ross hot ahold of a curveball low and away, but not low enough, He managed to clear the fence for a game tying three-run shot, and two outs later it was Ryan Lavarnway leaving the park, making it 4-3.

That was all Boston needed. Yes, it got a bit hairy at time, but Junichi Tazawa managed to clean up one bit of poor luck, and Andrew Bailey kept the Mariners off the board despite a two-out triple.

The Red Sox win, the Red Sox win, the Red Sox win. Not a monumental victory, but all that mattered was taking the streak back down to zero, so that when it inevitably starts up again, it will be tolerable.

That's all we can ask for right now.