Red Sox outfight Rays

Brawl precedes Ellsbury injury

Terry Francona ushers Coco Crisp away from the brawl that began when Crisp charged the mound after being hit. (John Bohn/Globe Staff)

One out into the top of the fourth inning, Kevin Youkilis jogged out to right field. The Red Sox' third center fielder of the game, J.D. Drew, had taken his position. There had been one swollen and reddened nose (Coco Crisp's), three ejections, and Chris Carter's major league debut. Oh, and soon after, Manny Ramírez and Youkilis had to be separated in the dugout.

It was just another quiet night at Fenway Park.

Bad blood had been boiling from Wednesday night's confrontations between Crisp and Joe Maddon, Crisp and Jason Bartlett, Crisp and Akinori Iwamura. Sure enough, the second pitch to Crisp from Rays starter James Shields in the second inning last night struck the batter's upper right thigh. For a second, Crisp hesitated. He dropped his bat.

Then he dropped his helmet and rushed the mound. Crisp's head snapped back, Matrix-style, as Shields swung and missed with a right. Crisp landed a punch. The benches then cleared, and in the center of it all, Crisp was at the bottom of a pig pile. Dioner Navarro wrestled him to the ground, and Jonny Gomes and Carl Crawford started firing punches, Gomes pounding away from atop Crisp.

Crisp, Gomes, and Shields were ejected.

Somewhere amid all this, the Red Sox beat the Rays, 7-1, for their sixth win in as many Fenway meetings with Tampa Bay and their 13th home win in a row. They expanded their American League East lead over Tampa to 1 1/2 games. Jon Lester got the win in his first Fenway start since his no-hitter against the Royals May 19. But those developments were lost among the sideshows.

"I'm all about protecting my players," Shields said. "I think what [Crisp] did [Wednesday] was an absolutely dirty move. It's bush league and it's not supposed to be in the game of professional baseball. I'm out there to protect my players, no matter what the cost is. It just shows the kind of character he is. He's not a professional player. I've lost all respect for him, and that's just the way the game goes."

Crisp stood by his locker after the game, smiling, with the remnants of the brawl on his face. He had scratches on his forehead and a red abrasion under his left eye. His nose looked slightly swollen.

"The scratches on my face are from people trying to scratch like we're playing football or something," he said. "Like little girls, trying to scratch out my eyes."

The most significant moment came in the fourth. Evan Longoria sent a Lester pitch to center that was caught by a diving Jacoby Ellsbury, who had moved from left after Crisp was ejected. His right wrist rolled when it hit the turf, and Ellsbury left the game in obvious pain. X-rays were negative, and Ellsbury was diagnosed with a strained right wrist and listed as day to day.

The brawl was the latest Sox-Rays conflagration triggered by beanballs, acrimony that dates back several years. When hearing the word "retribution" before the game, Rays manager Maddon had smiled knowingly. There was hardly a question that someone on the Red Sox, likely Crisp, would get drilled. Dustin Pedroia got it first, taking one off the elbow.

While there was anger in the Rays' clubhouse, Crisp was measured in his response. He and manager Terry Francona contended that Crawford perhaps should have been ejected as well. Francona called Crawford "pretty aggressive." Crisp said he was tugging on his hair. But mostly, Crisp seemed happy he wasn't injured.

"Navarro, I credit him," Crisp said of the Rays catcher, who jumped on top of him. "And I actually credit Shields, too. Even though we went at it, he hit me in the leg, he didn't try to hit me in the head. He didn't try to kill me. I ran out there and then he tried to hit me in the head. That's the way to go."

The brawl didn't quite settle matters. Lester hit Crawford in the upper arm with a breaking ball in the fifth. But Crawford trotted peacefully to first, and there were no more fireworks. At least for the moment. Lester went inside to Cliff Floyd in the seventh, drawing a glare from Gomes's replacement. He ended his evening by hitting Iwamura.

Then there was the intramural squabble. Just before the fifth, Youkilis and Ramírez got into it in the dugout. There was shouting, and Ramírez was trying to get at Youkilis while being restrained by trainer Paul Lessard and bench coach Brad Mills. Lessard and Mills finally ushered Ramírez into the tunnel leading to the clubhouse.

The game? That seemed secondary, and it was, though Ramírez got a rousing cheer for hitting a pitch into a parking lot on Lansdowne Street in the first for his 503d career home run. It was a three-run shot that followed Pedroia's hit-by-pitch and a Drew double, and it gave Lester the lead for good.

Boston added a run in the second, when pinch runner Carter scored on a sacrifice fly by Pedroia, and three in the fourth when Carter started things with his first major league hit, a single. Ramírez's two-run, bases-loaded single was the key blow. Or maybe not on a night when fists were flying.

So, do the fireworks reignite the rivalry?

"Yeah, probably so," Crisp said.