Orioles catcher Ramon Hernandez tags out the Red Sox’ Coco Crisp in the second inning.

AP / Gail Burton

BALTIMORE — When you’re not scoring runs, your pitchers can’t allow them.

That’s exactly what the bullpen was able to do for Boston last night as the Red Sox defeated the Orioles, 5-2, in a four-hour and 49-minute marathon that needed 13 innings to play here at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

Entering the 13th, the Boston Red Sox had scored a total of five runs in the previous 43 innings of this current road trip. Not a very flattering statistic.

In the fourth extra frame last night, Boston scored three unearned runs the hard way en route to victory. After Manny Ramirez, who is still one homer shy of 500 for his career, reached on an error and advanced to second on the same play, Mike Lowell provided the would-be game-winning hit. The Red Sox pushed across two more before Jonathan Papelbon earned his 15th save of the season.

After a horrid trip (1-5) through Oakland and Seattle, the Red Sox were back at their home away from home in Baltimore last night. A sea of red, white and blue Red Sox jerseys and hats overwhelmed the Baltimore fans as a good number of the 46,199 in attendance were part of The Nation.

“This feels a lot better than losing,” said Lowell. “Our bullpen did a great job. ... Giving up only two runs in 13 innings is a pretty good job.”

The score was knotted at 2-2 from the fourth inning on, and after Josh Beckett worked six solid innings, allowing just two runs on four hits with only three walks and 10 strikeouts, his bullpen put up enough zeros to allow the offense to finally do something in the end.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona used a total of six relievers, including Hideki Okajima, Manny Delcarmen, Javier Lopez, Craig Hansen, Mike Timlin (3-3) and Papelbon.

“I think both the bullpens did a really good job,” said Beckett. “I was obviously happy with the way our guys did, but [the Orioles] had some guys do some good things, too.

The Red Sox needed their ace to come though in a big way last night.

Early yesterday afternoon, Boston placed Daisuke Matsuzaka on the 15-day disabled list with a mild rotator-cuff strain, so Beckett wanted to give the Sox something to be happy about during this tough three-city, 10-game road trip.

“They made him work,” said Francona. “He’s facing a lineup that pretty much one through nine has faced him a lot. They made him work and he was able to pitch out of a big jam late, and they made him throw a lot of pitches. Other than the home run and the other run early, he kept them at bay. That was good because after we scored those two runs [in the first inning], it took us about four and a half hours to get another one.”

This victory was key for the struggling Sox, and even though Francona always talks about living and playing one day at a time, everyone in the clubhouse after the game was relieved.

“This was a big win,” said Julio Lugo. “We needed it. Definitely we needed it.”

jmcdonal@projo.com