BOSTON -- Marco Scutaro was left to lean in mock frustration against the drink machine across the room from his locker on Saturday afternoon. A throng of reporters around the locker of Kevin Youkilis had grown so deep that Scutaro couldn't get into his adjacent locker.

Scutaro didn't have that problem late Sunday night. The throng was around his locker.

Scutaro entered the game with a .143 batting average and .182 on-base percentage in 22 plate appearances this season. But the shortstop reached base each of the three times he faced CC Sabathia -- walk, walk, single -- and he stroked a two-run double into the left-field corner off Joba Chamberlain in the seventh inning to extend the Red Sox lead to 3-0.

Chamberlain started Scutaro with a first-pitch slider down and away. Scutaro has had trouble with offspeed pitches early on this season, getting too far out in front of just about anything that's not a fastball. He let the slider go past.

"My timing was a little messed up," he said. "I was hitting everything out front. I wasn't letting the ball travel."

Chamberlain then threw a fastball up and in, and Scutaro jumped all over it, ripping it into the left-field corner. It was the hardest ball he'd hit all season.

"You spend more time in this situation, on feeling good at the plate," he said. "Hitting is so hard that you have to spend the whole year battling with your swing."

Said Dustin Pedroia, "It was a big hit -- not just for us, but for him."

Starter Josh Beckett appreciated the extra cushion.

"That was nice. Just lets you go about things a little bit differently," he said. "You're not worried about a guy cheating on one pitch to tie the game up."

Carl Crawford wasn't so lucky. The $142 million left fielder went hitless in five at-bats, and his batting average sank to .132. But he drove Curtis Granderson back to the warning track with a fly ball in the fourth inning, and he smoked a ground ball right at Robinson Cano with runners on second and third in the seventh.

"They're not going to scuffle all year," said Pedroia, who was scuffling himself until he collected nine hits against the Yankees. "Carl, tonight, he went 0-for-5 but he hit four balls on the screws. You don't hit the ball like that all year and not get rewarded."