For the 5th time in the month of May, the Sox held their opponent to 3 runs or less and still managed to lose, dropping this one to the Twins, 2-1. Clay Buchholz wasn’t dominant, but he was good for someone who clearly didn’t have his best stuff (only two strikeouts on the night) and very efficient. True, his efficiency was probably helped out a bit by Twins hitters jumping all over early pitches, thinking they could drive them, but that’s not a bad strategy as long as they don’t ACTUALLY drive anything.

The likely reason they felt they could hammer Clay’s stuff was the 1st inning, in which he gave up three hard-hit doubles (to left, to right, and to left), allowing two runs to score in the process. However, for the rest of the game, Minnesota advanced two runners to third base but no further, and Buchholz ended up going 7 1/3 innings, giving up only 4 hits from the second to the eighth. This seemed a minor miracle from my couch, as he continually left pitches up in the zone or, perhaps to his benefit, HIGHER than the zone, missing very badly when he missed.

He was helped out by his defense, especially Rusney Castillo in right field. Castillo twice took away potential doubles from Kurt Suzuki, including a risky but successful but play in the bottom of the eighth inning to bail out Alexi Ogando – Joe Mauer would likely have scored from first if the ball had gotten past Castillo. Suzuki was also semi-robbed by Hanley Ramirez in left on a ball that nearly sailed over Hanley’s head in the 4th inning.

On the other side of the ball, well, as usual, there isn’t much to say. If you’re looking for a recap of repeated ineptitude, you’ve come to the right place. The Sox got their sole run of the game from a one-out double by David Ortiz, the result of a great at-bat in which he fouled off a couple pitches with two strikes on him. This will surprise no one, but that was Boston’s only extra-base hit of the night. Mike Napoli, bless him, drove in Big Papi after fouling off a couple two-strike pitches himself with a broken bat single to left.

The Red Sox’ only other real opportunity came with 2 outs in the top of the 8th inning, after Castillo grounded out back to Blaine Boyer on Boyer’s first pitch of the night, relieving Mike Pelfrey after seven innings of seemingly hittable (but ultimately excellent) work. I’ll just say that hitting a nubber on a outside breaking ball with an empty count and no outs with your team down by one run late in a game is the work of a young player. Sandy León had his first multi-hit game since April 13, so you couldn’t really fault him tonight, but grounded out to third here to set the stage for Dustin Pedroia.

Pedroia fouled off a couple pitches with two strikes, then grounded one pretty slowly right up the middle to get on first. Pedroia advanced to second on a wild pitch by Boyer that also drove the count full to Mookie Betts, and Mookie walked two pitches later. The Twins brought in their closer, the lefty Glen Perkins, to face Pablo Sandoval, batting in the three hole, and hitting lefty against a lefty again. He loaded the bases with an infield single but couldn’t bring home Pedroia, as second baseman Brian Dozier made a nice play to prevent the run scoring.

This brought up Hanley Ramirez, who logic would dictate I would want to see in this situation, but I really didn’t. He vindicated my lack of faith with a line drive/fly ball out to right field. I just feel like he’s been doing that a lot: a lot of pretty well-hit but easily handled balls. They seem like lazy flies compared to what he’s capable of. Where has the power gone? As the Twins’ broadcast team said, “The old sacrifice fly with two outs and the bases loaded, gotta love it.”

And that was pretty much it.

Notes:

• How come I always get the games where Pedroia makes errors and I don’t get to appreciate him like the magical sunset he is? To be fair, he did also make a few excellent plays.
• I’m shocked that the Red Sox don’t lead the league in grounding into double plays. As it stands, they’re tied for 9th most, with 37. The Detroit Tigers lead the league with 52, while the Rays have hit into the least, with 24. FUN FACTS.
• I’ll just leave this here: “After Pelfrey struck out Ramirez in the fourth, Ramirez whacked the bench in the dugout with his bat. In the sixth, half of Ramirez’s bat went flying into the stands after it broke on a soft liner to shortstop.”

 

Mike Napoli continues to provide the offense and the pitching continues to be solid (excepting that ugly Porcello start the other night). The Sox came away with the victory and the series yesterday afternoon, responding with two wins in a row after a 1-4 skid.

Wade Miley started the game with 4.2 perfect innings, but no strikeouts. He lost the perfect game and no-hitter in quick succession, giving up a walk and a single with two outs in the 5th, but got out of the inning by hustling over to first to cover for a ground ball hit to Napoli.

After notching his first strikeout of the night to start the sixth, he gave up a single and a Mike Trout double hit hard down the left field line to score Erick Aybar and make it 3-1, Red Sox.

Boston had gotten its runs two ways:

1. A home run by Napoli. This one was to dead center and still about ten rows deep. The decision to move Xander Bogaerts up in the batting order is paying dividends so far, as he went 4-4 and would get knocked in by Napoli twice in this game. Napoli, by the way, is now above the Mendoza line for the first time this year. Three cheers for small victories!

2. Boston manufactured a run in the bottom of the 5th, just before Trout hit his RBI double. Brock Holt hit a ground-rule double into the triangle in center field. Sandy León laid down a sacrifice bunt to move him to third (León’s gotta be one of the league leaders in sacrifice bunts at this point…never mind, he only has three. Huh.) and Pedroia hit a sacrifice fly to Trout in center to score Holt.

The Angels wouldn’t score again, with only one baserunner after Trout’s double. This came in the 8th inning on a ball hit sharply and directly at Brock Holt playing the hot corner, catching him on his glove wrist and deflecting into left field. He needed a minute or two to compose himself, but came back strong to turn two on the next batter, Aybar, and end the inning. A returning Pablo Sandoval did pinch hit for him in the bottom half of the 8th, though, so it’s something to keep an eye on.

The Angels had escaped from a similar predicament in the 6th inning. With two outs, Bogaerts hit a double down the left field line, and Hector Santiago intentionally walked Napoli. Is it possible he was lost in thought about his hitting resurgence, and how it earned him his first intentional walk of 2015, over at first base? Whatever was going through his head, he was staring straight out at second base and let Albert Pujols sneak behind him. Santiago was able to pick him off pretty easily with a neat overhead pinpoint throw.

The Sox added some insurance in the bottom of the 8th with a near-home run/actual double by Napoli that brought in both Hanley and Xander, both of whom had singled. Sandoval then got a single batting from the lefty side against a lefty (!) to bring in Napoli, and thus the scoring would end.

Koji came in for the 9th for his second consecutive scoreless non-save situation appearance. And that’s all she wrote.