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.”