Boston back in the swing; Win puts Sox 8 up on N.Y.

Byline: Bill Ballou

BOSTON - One of the unwritten amendments to the Baseball Constitution is the Law of Evening Out, and it has nothing to do with nightclubs, taverns or broadway plays.

The last few days, Julio Lugo has been obeying the Law of Evening Out, as has Coco Crisp. The last two days, the entire Red Sox offense has been subject to the Law of Evening Out, which merely says that as bad as a team's luck might be for a while, it gets as good as it can be some time after that.

And it all evens out in the end.

Which explains why everything went right for the Red Sox yesterday in their 11-2 victory over the White Sox, just like it went right after the first inning on Friday night when they bounced back from a lost home run to beat Chicago, 10-3.

The back-to-back victories mark the first time Boston has won two straight games since before the All-Star break, when it took four in a row from July 2-5. The Yankees also won yesterday, so Boston's lead remains at eight games.

Eight games, and how big of a lead is that, anyway? Five days ago, with New York surging and the Red Sox coming off a 9-3 loss to Jimmy Gobble and the Royals, the lead was "only" eight games. Now, with Boston's bats cooking again, young Kason Gabbard throwing strikes and Curt Schilling on the comeback turnpike, the Yankees are eight whole games behind.

Yesterday, for the second straight start, Gabbard was beyond good - he was overpowering. Save for a second-inning defensive lapse by left fielder Wily Mo Pena, Gabbard might have thrown seven shutout innings instead of seven innings of one-run ball.

He got 15 outs on ground balls, 10 of them in the first four innings. The White Sox had just two men reach second base, both of them on doubles - Paul Konerko and Josh Fields - in the second inning. That was when Chicago scored as Konerko doubled past Pena in left, after which Gabbard threw Fields a cookie that he lined to right.

Gabbard, who went seven innings, is 4-0 and going back to last year is 5-0 in his first five career starts at home. Only George Winter (1901) and Dave Ferriss (1945) won their first five home starts in a Sox uniform. Nobody has won his first six.

In his last three starts, Gabbard is 2-0 with a 1.21 ERA. In his last two, which includes last week's shutout of the Royals here, Gabbard has allowed five hits, two walks and one earned run in 16 innings.

Gabbard started the 2006 season in Double A and made his first major-league appearance exactly a year ago. He has evolved from an emergency callup guy to a front-line starter.

"I've come a long way," he said. "I'm just trusting my stuff. How the game is played doesn't change from level to level. You just trust your stuff and try to go out and do the same things."

"It was very impressive, very meaningful and exciting," manager Terry Francona said, noting that Gabbard was probably just a trifle more dominant against Kansas City than yesterday.

"He established his changeup early and often in key situations," Francona added.

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen went through five pitchers. The first four finished the game with earned run averages of, respectively, 4.88, 20.25, 5.81 and 12.27. The starter was John Danks, who gave up four runs in six innings and fell to 6-7.

The Red Sox had 11 hits off those five Chicago pitchers, with Coco Crisp going 3 for 4 with five RBIs to lead the way. Boston worked nine walks, five of them coming in succession in the seventh inning when it scored seven runs. Dustin Pedroia had a pair of hits, and so did Eric Hinske. Both of Hinske's hits were in the seventh when he singled, tripled and stole a base as part of the rally.

Gabbard threw only 86 pitches, but the bottom of the seventh inning was a long one and Francona decided to not risk sending the lefty back out there. He had Gabbard take the mound for warmups to buy some time for reliever Javier Lopez, then the rookie loped off to a big ovation.

That made it two straight wins for him, and two straight wins for the Red Sox, whose eight-game lead looks a lot bigger now than it did a few days ago, for some inexplicable reason.

NAME: BOSTON RED SOX