Red Sox 11, Twins 9: Comeback falls short

There was a lot of offense tonight from both the Red Sox and the Twins. Griffin Jax, who had been on a bit of a hot stretch, struggled after the first trip through the Red Sox lineup. The same could be said for the Red Sox rookie starter, Tanner Houck, who couldn’t complete 5 innings.

The Twins got the scoring started quickly, as Max Kepler tripled to lead off the game and scored later on a Jorge Polanco single. In the 3rd inning, the Red Sox tied it thanks to a solo homer by Travis Shaw.

In the 4th, the Twins jumped out to a 3-1 advantage on Miguel Sano’s 2-run single, but the Red Sox did them one better in the bottom half with a Hunter Renfroe 3-run bomb to left, putting them ahead 4-3.

Boston proceeded to break the game open in the 5th, scoring 5 times. Notably, Renfroe hit another homer (2-run), and Alex Verdugo hit a 2-run double. Jax was out of the game with 2 outs in the 5th with the score 9-3 in favor of the Red Sox.

This game was looking pretty much over, but the Twins fought back. They scratched together a run in the 6th on a Miguel Sano groundout, scoring Mitch Garver. In the 7th, Jorge Polanco blasted a 2-run homer, and Nick Gordon hit a 2-run single to make it a 9-8 game.

On the pitching side of things, which is the other half of baseball if you didn’t know, Juan Minaya and Tyler Duffey were able to hold the Red Sox to 0 runs in the 6th and 7th innings.

The Twins went quietly in their half of the 8th, but the Red Sox got some insurance in the form of a 2-run homer by Enrique Hernandez off of Caleb Thielbar. That made the score 11-8 going into the 9th inning.

Josh Donaldson got a run back on a solo blast to deep center, then Luis Arraez and Garver walked. Old friend, Hansel Robles, entered the game to try to put out the fire. Gordon and Sano struck out, and suddenly the game was in the hands of Jake Cave. Actually, the bat was in his hands, but the game was at stake. He hit a liner right to the 2nd baseman to end the game. It was a good try.

Studs:

Polanco, Gordon, Sano, various other Twins who got a couple hits today.

Duds:

Griffin Jax: 4.2 IP, 7 H, 9 R, 4 BB, 4 SO

Thielbar: 2-run homer given up.

Robot Roll Call!

Thanks for joining us in the game thread, everybody! This was a very long game.