Sox execute to the nines

Beckett, Crisp star in a showy victory

CINCINNATI - This was just moments after Manny Delcarmen had pretended his cellphone was a microphone and stuck it in the face of Coco Crisp, whose postgame reverie already had been disrupted by an overeager inquisitor while he still had only one sock on, not to mention no shirt or pants.

Now, his perfectly pressed dress shirt fully buttoned, Crisp turned to face what had become a gaggle of paid interrogators, the first inquiring what Crisp thought about Josh Beckett after yesterday's 9-0 shutout of the Cincinnati Reds.

"Who cares about Beckett?" Crisp said after Boston's fourth win in five games and ninth in the last 12. "Let's talk about me."

While he was at it, Crisp might as well have added, who cares about Manny Ramírez or David Ortiz, too?

Playing without the heart of their lineup for the second straight game, the Sox matched their season high in home runs with four, one each by the first three batters in Terry Francona's order (Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, and J.D. Drew), the other by Crisp, who, of course, was joshing when he feigned disinterest in Beckett, who strung together seven zeroes after being given a five-run advantage in the first three innings.

"The game he pitched today was typical Beckett, about the same as last year," Crisp said. "If he builds off what he did today, he'll be unstoppable again."

While Beckett, who threw 22 of 28 first-pitch strikes, allowed just one extra-base hit (Joey Votto's double), and did not allow a Red to reach third, was coolly efficient on a muggy 83-degree day, there was another Sox player Cincinnati could not apprehend, try as it might.

Ellsbury slapped an opposite-field single to left on the game's third pitch. He stole second on the next pitch, setting the club rookie record for steals, then swiped third on the next, his 33d stolen base of a season that has not yet reached its halfway point. Moments later, he was crossing the plate on Pedroia's sacrifice fly, and for the second straight game, the Sox had a lead one out into play, Ellsbury having circled the bases to put the Sox ahead on Saturday (single, wild pitch, steal, catcher's overthrow).

His next at-bat, in the third, Ellsbury homered, an inning after Crisp's two-run home run (and second in two at-bats, Crisp having gone deep in his final at-bat Saturday). Drew added his 11th home run in the third, making it 5-0, Sox. Boston's first three homers came off one David Bailey, a 22-year-old rookie who answers by his great-grandfather's name: Homer. The acorn, evidently, doesn't fall far from the oak.

One major league scout, dismayed by the 0-and-2 curveball Bailey hung to Ellsbury on the home run (his single also came on an 0-and-2 pitch), said, "He has no command of his secondary pitches. He has a long way to go before he's ready to pitch here."

The boos that rained down from the crowd of 39,958 at Great American Ballpark when Bailey (0-3, 8.76 ERA) was removed in the third by manager Dusty Baker, who has had better birthdays than the 59th he observed yesterday, seconded that opinion.

The Sox tacked on three runs in the fifth, homey Kevin Youkilis knocking in another run on a day he wore a Reds straw hat into the clubhouse, before Pedroia belted his fifth home run of the season in the sixth.

Without big boppers Ortiz (wrist) and Ramírez (hamstring), the Sox had their most one-sided win of the season.

"Everybody here can hit," Beckett said. "They wouldn't be in this locker room if they couldn't hit. Not too many people slip through the cracks in the big leagues. I'd have to say zero slip through when you play for the Boston Red Sox. We can get it pretty much from anywhere."

Beckett just as easily could have been speaking about the team's starting pitching. In 14 games this month, a Sox starter has failed to go at least six innings just once, Bartolo Colon lasting just five innings against the Mariners June 6. They are 9-2 with a 3.29 ERA in that span, striking out 69 while walking just 24 in 82 innings.

This was the first time this season that Beckett (7-4) was unscored upon, but while the strikeouts have tapered off (14 in three starts since his 10-K outing May 30), he has given up just two home runs in five starts since a four-homer barrage by the Brewers May 18, and in four of his last five starts, he has allowed two runs or fewer.

"I felt good today," said Beckett, who painted the outside corner to whiff Adam Dunn with two on to end the first, induced the phenom, Jay Bruce, to pop out with two on to end the second, and got Bruce to hit into a double play with two on to end the seventh.

"I threw a lot of pitches, good pitches, when I needed to, and they hit 'em at guys.

"Just a good day. Guys scored runs, and played good defense."

And then there was Crisp, who attributed his sudden show of strength to ballpark dimensions decidedly more favorable than what he faces at home.

"I play at Fenway, I can't hit home runs there," he said. "This field is 350, you know. Fenway, it's 380 down the lines. Hey, I'm just out there hitting the ball. If it goes out, it goes out. I don't care about home runs.

"We have a good-hitting team. Those guys [Ramírez and Ortiz] make us better, no doubt, but we can still play good ball as a team without our superstars."

Coco's tote sheet at the end of the day: a home run and a single, and three strikeouts.

"I had a good day and a bad day on the same day," he said. "Pretty impressive, isn't it?"

Gordon Edes can be reached at edes@globe.com.