Red Sox 6, Twins 5: Stephen Drew Walks Off Boston With RBI Double

I'll be honest: I think the Twins lost because of me. In my time in Boston, the Red Sox have been undefeated during my visits...except for when they play the Twins. When they've played Minnesota and I've attended, Boston has lost. So when I bolted out of my seat at 11:50-something because I suddenly remembered that if I missed the last train I'd have to walk home from Fenway Park (into Jamaica Plain, though a few unsavory neighborhoods no less), which is just not something I wanted to do.

The second I walked out of the gate, I heard that damned song they play every time the Sox win. My fault, guys. My bad.

This game was thoroughly entertaining. Getting to Clay Buchhholz early and hearing the silence of Fenway Park was a beautiful thing. Joe Mauer and Josh Willingham with a little "whap-whap". The Twins did it again later with Oswaldo Arcia and Aaron Hicks. Mauer's fantastic tag at the plate when the Red Sox tried to pull within one. Chris Parmelee's fantastic extra innings catch. Four thousand double plays turned behind Vance Worley and a big one behind Brian Duensing as well. Brian Dozier's ninth inning homer to tie the game back up at five, whereupon I was the only person in the right field porch cheering.

At least it felt like it.

The Twins did blow their chances. Dozier and Mauer reached in the seventh with nobody out, but they weren't able to cross the plate. Back-to-back walks in the tenth from Trevor Plouffe and Arcia went nowhere. Wilkin Ramirez was brought in to pinch hit for Hicks, which is just not a good sign for Hicks. This was already after Gardy had inserted Eduardo Escobar to pinch run for Josh Willingham.

Tonight it just wasn't to be. But I'll be back for at least one more game this week, and hopefully the Twins will have better luck then.

ROLL CALL!

1. Sportsavenue (180)
2. DavidRF (127)
3. SotaFan27 (109)
4. kenzertz (103)
5. d-mac (87)
6. less cowbell, more 'neau (77)
7. ColossusOfRhode (72)
8. montanatwinsfan (64)
9. SooFoo Fan (61)
10. spanspanspan (57)

Just a couple of other notes...

• Justin Morneau looked generally awful at the plate today. He looked like he was back to just straight up guessing, and he was unable to really catch up with anything. He did manage to put good wood on the ball a couple of times, but he didn't look good doing it.
• Anthony Swarzak was huge, giving the Twins three innings of scoreless baseball.
• Casey Fien allowed a pair of crucial solo home runs. No, I'm not putting the game on him, but they really were big runs at bad times.

Studs

Brian Dozier
Joe Mauer
Josh Willingham
Anthony Swarzak

Duds

Justin Morneau
Casey Fien
Pedro Florimon
Jared Burton