THE HIGHLIGHTS: Chris Carter and Jeff Natale each had four hits and drove in two runs to key an 18-hit attack. David Ross added three hits and Gil Velazquez had a three-run homer. Marcus McBeth, Beau Vaughn and Chris Smith combined to strike out nine while shutting out Lehigh Valley over the final six innings after Bartolo Colon’s injury rehabilitation assignment was complete. Colon recovered from a four-run second inning to strike out the side in his third and final inning.

KEY TO THE GAME: The PawSox strung together hits to score early and late. Four straight two-out singles — by Carter, Ross, Keith Ginter and Natale — produced three runs in the first. Carter and Ross had back-to-back RBI singles with two out in the second for a 5-0 lead. That production came after all four of Monday’s runs were scored with two out. “It has kind of been uncanny,” PawSox manager Ron Johnson said. “It’s getting to the point where when we get two outs in an inning, I’m thinking, ‘OK, we’re in great shape.’ ” After Brandon Watson’s three-run homer pulled the IronPigs to within 5-4 in the bottom of the second, the score stayed that way until the ninth, when the first six PawSox had hits. The last two hits in that streak were back-to-back homers by Velazquez and Jonathan Van Every. Carter, Ross, Ginter and Natale had consecutive hits for the second time in the game to start the six-run outburst.

FILLING HOLES: Joe Thurston, the league’s fifth-leading hitter, was called to Boston, but the offense was just fine. Monday, David Pauley, the league leader in wins, got promoted and the pitching staff still got the job done. “The last two days we’ve lost people and others have stepped up,” Johnson said. “We lost one of the league’s top hitters and Natale gets four hits and Carter comes back into the lineup (from the disabled list) and gets four hits, too. It’s good to see.”

UP NEXT: The PawSox play their final road game of the season tonight (7:05), with Edgar Martinez (7-3, 4.02 ERA) going against Lehigh Valley’s Kris Benson (1-3, 4.95).