Minnesota Twins Win Grapefruit League Opener

Grapefruit League play opened up for the Minnesota Twins on Thursday night and it opened up with a whole lot of scoring. The Twins took on their crosstown rivals, the Boston Red Sox, and came out on top of the 9-8 slugfest.

The Twins scored in each of the first six innings of the game. The first RBI of the true spring went to bringing-the-band-back-together 2K15 Torii Hunter who brought in Brian Dozier on an RBI single. Next man up was Oswaldo Arcia who brought in Joe Mauer via a double.

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Second inning saw an RBI triple from Aaron Hicks followed by a RBI double from Danny Santana.

The third inning featured a three-run homer for the opposition. Xander Bogaerts hit a two-run homer off of Tim Stauffer. Stauffer also gave up a RBI single to Mike Napoli.

Eduardo Escobar answered with a two-run homer of his own in the bottom half of the inning making it 6-4 in favor of the Twins.

Then Dustin Pedroia happened.

Ryan O’Rourke served up a grand slam to the All-Star second basemen which gave the Red Sox an 8-6 lead. The bright side was that Boston would not score again.

Dozier cut it to a one-run game in the bottom of the inning with an RBI double. Hicks contributed a sac fly in the fifth to tie the contest up. A throwing error in the sixth inning allowed Dan Rohlfing to score and gave the Twins the deciding 9-8 victory.

Hicks and Escobar led the RBI game with two apiece for the Twins. Santana, Dozier, Kurt Suzuki and Escobar all went 2-for-3 at the plate.

Kyle Gibson started the game for the Twins and went two innings of work allowing one run on two hits and two strikeouts. Brian Duensing and Casey Fien both came out of the pen and pitched scoreless innings.

The game ended on a pickoff from Aaron Thompson.

The full boxscore from Thursday night can be found here.

The Twins play at noon (central) on Friday against the Tampa Bay Rays.

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