Big Papi and the Red Sox Take Down the Twins
David Ortiz has made himself very comfortable at Target Field these past few days. Unfortunately for the Twins, he has been wreaking havoc against his former team. A day following a multi home run game, Ortiz did the same tonight as he led the Red Sox to an easy victory over the Minnesota Twins.
Kevin Correia looked to rebound tonight as he has struggled for most of this year, and his struggles continued tonight. Before many of the fans could even find their seats, the Twins were down early 2-0 after the top of the first, and the game was never really close from there. Shane Victorino singled, Oritz doubled, and then Mike Napoli grounded out to push across the first run of the game and the Sox never looked back. Grady Sizemore, who is making his resurgence in the MLB this year, doubled to drive in Ortiz for the 2nd run of the inning. Common theme so far, Ortiz has been nothing but a pest for Twins pitching this series and was not done here.
In the 3rd inning, Correia served up a meat ball to Big Papi, who proceeded to crush the ball about 100 miles. Well not really, because that would be some sort of record. After Joe Mauer put the Twins on the board with a sac fly in the bottom of the 4th, Big Papi was at it again in the 5th, this time against lefty Caleb Thielbar. Again, Big Papi got a pitch he liked and smoked it over the fence to put the Sox up 6-1.
In the past two games, Ortiz has 7 hits in 10 at-bats with 4 of those hits being home runs and has driven in 6 RBI.
Correia, now 1-5 on the year, last 4 innings work while giving up 5 runs on 9 hits and saw his ERA jump up to 6.80 for the year. To say he did not have his best stuff tonight would be an understatement. Meanwhile, the Red Sox got a quality start from their starter, Felix Doubront, who improved to 2-3 on the year. Felix last 6.1 innings, gave up one run, seven hits, and struck out 5 Twins.
A.J. Pierzynski drove in two runs on an RBI single in the top of the 9th off of Michael Tonkin to put the Red Sox up 9-2. Both of those runs were unearned runs to Tonkin after Eduardo Nunez misplayed a line drive hit to him in left field. The Twins made the score a little more competitive in the bottom of the 9th, to make it 9-4 after Trevor Plouffe hit a 2-run home run for just his 2nd home run of the year.
Other Notes:
In tomorrow’s matinee rubber match, the Red Sox will send out Clay Buchholz, looking to win his 3rd game, while the Minnesota Twins will send out Phil Hughes, who is looking to win his 5th game.