Final, Twins Win 6-4: Well, if you're a Red Sox fan you have to be pretty frustrated, and about at the point where it's time to take serious stock of expectations for the rest of the season.
With the two wild card spots, by virtue of the number of games the Red Sox are out of a playoff spot, there still seems to be reason for optimism. On the other hand, you just have to look at how many other teams are between Boston and that second wild card spot to understand just how steep of an uphill climb it would be for the team the rest of the way to make the playoffs.
In short, this one hurts for the Red Sox, and there's no way of getting around that. This was a game they desperately needed to win, and couldn't come up with.
The Sox see their record fall to two games under .500 (53-55) while the Twins move to 47-60. Alex Burnett (4-3) picks up the win in relief, while Alfredo Aceves (2-7) gets saddled with the loss and Jared Burton picks up his fifth save.
Well, that's it for us here with your Red Sox Live Blog. You can stick with us here at NESN.com or tune into NESN for all your postgame needs, and be sure to join us for another edition of the live blog tomorrow as the Red Sox try to salvage one game of the four-game set, with first pitch set for 1:35 p.m. ET.
Adios.
Mid 9th, Twins 6-4: Aceves hadn't yielded a run over a streak of nine appearances before his last couple outings, so maybe he was due to give up a couple.
That being said, what a shocker for the Red Sox, who have to feel like they just had the wind knocked out of them. The timing definitely seemed a little odd when Ciriaco came out of the dugout for a curtain call after hitting his home run, and at this point it seems like maybe that was tempting fate a little bit.
Either way, the Sox now find themselves down by two going into their last at-bat of a game they were pretty much desperate to win. Now Boston is facing losing its fifth game in a row and seeing its playoff hopes recede that much further.
End 8th, Red Sox 4-2: Well, somehow, Ciriaco continues to come through in the clutch for the Red Sox. And, unlike his two game-winning hits against the Yankees — which included one flukely bloop hit and a fly ball to center field which should have been caught by Curtis Granderson — the infielder clearly earned this one.
It's a wierd disparity for Ciriaco, who seems to find a way to keep coming through when the team needs him the most, but the rest of the time his performance has been substandard. It's a nice story to follow, but keep in mind that according to all the numbers, clutch hitting doesn't really exist. Good hitters hit well in the clutch, bad hitters don't.
Nonetheless, it's been a hell of a ride for Ciriaco, and now Aceves gets a chance to shut it down and preserve his own win.
Mid 8th, 2-2: Well, so much for the Red Sox bullpen holding that slim one-run lead. During this live blogger's last shift, on Wednesday, we had written about how Miller has thrived in the role of a situational lefty, but he sure wasn't on his game in that last half inning, having a great amount of trouble just finding the strike zone.
Credit Alfredo Aceves for coming in there and limiting the damage to a single run, but now it's up to the Red Sox offense to respond against the Twins bullpen, after De Vries largely held them in check all night.
End 7th, Red Sox 2-1: We'll have to check on this, but this is likely the best game De Vries has pitched in his brief major league career thus far. The right-hander just hasn't allowed the Red Sox to string anything together or mount any kind of sustained rally. He nearly matched Buchholz pitch for pitch, and as a result has kept this a tight one through seven innings.
This is that scary point in the game where one swing of the bat can change its complexion, so now it's up to the Sox bullpen to hold the slim one-run lead.
Mid 7th, Red Sox 2-1: Buchholz appeared to show no ill effects of the possible injury he sustained back in the sixth, crusing through the seventh inning on 10 pitches. After 103 pitches, he's likely done for the night, but it's the fourth consecutive start that he's gone at least seven innings, and in allowing just one unearned run the right-hander is continuing his run of success and really starting to cement himself as the leader of the Red Sox rotation.
The question is, now that the starting unit has an ace, does it matter going forward through the rest of the season? How Beckett and Lester fare the rest of the year would seem to have a huge impact on how the rest of the year plays out, but Buchholz out to be considered the No. 1 going forward.
End 6th, Red Sox 2-1: De Vries continues to keep it simple with his approach to the Red Sox hitters and continues to get results, now having yielded just three hits and two walks through five innings, including retiring seven of his last eight hitters faced.
Meanwhile, it looks like Buchholz is indeed going to continue to pitch for one more inning, so keep an eye on his mechanics and whether or not his rythm or arm angle change as a result of his possible injury.
Mid 6th, Red Sox 2-1: It will be interesting to see if Buchholz comes out to pitch another inning after apparently tweaking something while inducing that double play.
At 93 pitches you would expect Buchholz to try to go one more, but after sitting in the dugout and giving his muscles time to tighten up, the Sox may not want to put him back out there and risk further injury.
It was actually really difficult to pick up where or how Buchholz injured himself, but he was clearly experiencing some discomfort after jumping off the mound towards first base with that ground ball to the right side of the infield.
End 5th, Red Sox 2-1: De Vries continues to roll along, striking out the side in that last half inning.
On the night the right-hander has allowed just four baserunners in five innings of work, striking out four and throwing just 68 pitches. That's some pretty excellent efficiency and general mastery of a tough Red Sox lineup.
Mid 5th, Red Sox 2-1: That was a very interesting play with Ben Revere running down the line to first base.
Last night, this live blogger (who, full disclosure, is a native Californian) was watching the game between the Angels and White Sox, and the Angels played the game under protest after arguing that Paul Konerko ran inside the base line to first and interfered on a catcher's throw very, very similar to the play Shoppach had to make there.
Granted, Shoppach's was a much more difficult play, but on the replay you could clearly see that Revere was running well inside the base line, which should result in a call of runner's interference and an automatic out and dead ball. We're not sure how no one — neither the umpires nor Sox manager Bobby Valentine — saw that, but it could have been a case to argue, as it clearly impacted how the inning played out.
End 4th, Red Sox 2-0: When your rookie season is at age 27, expectations probably aren't too high for the arc of your career, but De Vries is sure shutting down the Red Sox on this evening.
Outside of the walk to Kalish to open the game, De Vries has really only thrown two bad pitches, and they were both his hard — Crawford's double off the Monster and Aviles' home run. Aside from that, all De Vries has allowed through four innings is a walk to Saltalamacchia, largely having his way with the Red Sox and mostly just showing a straight fastball and a curveball. Still, keep an eye out for the gopher ball, as De Vries had allowed 12 home runs in 52 innings coming into this game.
Mid 4th, Red Sox 2-0: When we were going through Buchholz' array of pitches earlier in this live blog, we completely forgot to mention the right-hander's curveball, which can also be a plus pitch when it has more of a 12-6 break rather than a flat, horizontal one. In that last half inning, Buchholz snapped off a couple of them.
That means the 27-year-old has a repertoire of five pitches in total, the changeup probably being the weakest one. Buchholz will typically base everything else off of his twin fastballs, but when he's commanding all five pitches he's virtually impossible to hit.
End 3rd, Red Sox 2-0: Though one of them isn't in the lineup tonight, the Twins have two of the most underrated players in baseball regularly in their starting nine in Josh Willingham and Ryan Doumit.
Neither one of them is a truly elite hitter, but they are both very potent bats who have been consistently undervalued throughout their careers.
Willingham has basically been a starter since 2006, putting up an .848 OPS over his career and hitting at least 20 home runs in five out of the last seven seasons. Doumit, meanwhile, has had some injury problems that kept him out of the lineup at times when he was with the Pirates, but when he was on the field put up an OPS over .800 in three of the past five seasons — many of those at-bats coming as a catcher.
Mid 3rd, Red Sox 2-0: Buchholz did well to bounce back there after getting himself out a jam back in the second inning. He's not quite Aaron Cook out there, but when he's on Buchholz will work at a much faster pace than say Josh Beckett, getting into a pretty solid rhythm if he's on.
That's what you saw some of in that last half inning, as Buchholz doesn't waste much time in between pitches, getting the ball back and getting right back up on the hill.
End 2nd, Red Sox 2-0: As we've mentioned previously in this live blog, there's been some debate as to whether Pedro Ciriaco should usurp Aviles as the starting shortstop, but that last half inning provided a good example of why that should absolutely not happen.
Aviles has his deficiencies as a hitter — most notably, like Ciriaco, he rarely walks — but he also has offensive abilities that Ciriaco doesn't, namely power. That was Aviles' 11th home run on the season, and he carried a .406 slugging percentage into Saturday night's game. That's not a spectacular number, but it's also nothing to sneeze at coming from a middle infielder. It probably won't happen at age 31, but if Aviles could ever increase his walk rate he would be among the more valuable middle infielders in all of baseball.
Mid 2nd, Red Sox 1-0: Good job there by Buchholz to get out of that inning without yielding any runs. He was also certainly helped by the defensive efforts at third base by Nick Punto.
Buchholz' command doesn't quite look what is has in recent starts, but his pure stuff does look just as good, meaning this may be an evening where the right-hander can battle through some difficulties but won't pitch with as much efficiency as he's shown recently. But that remains to be seen.
End 1st, Red Sox 1-0: Since enduring a four-game hitless stretch toward the latter third of July, Crawford has looked much, much more comfortable in the batter's box, and has been hitting the ball with authority over his past seven games. The left fielder has slugged .741 over that stretch, including two doubles, a triple and three home runs.
Suffice to say, if Crawford can get himself all the way back to his Tampa Bay prime, then it's just another piece to add to an already dangerous Red Sox lineup.
Mid 1st, 0-0: Does anyone else not think it's a coincidence that the last time the Sox won a game was the last time Buchholz was on the hill?
Anyway, the right-hander looked very sharp in that first inning, looking to continue the form that's seen him post a sub-1.00 WHIP since the All-Star break.
What you'll want to look for from Buchholz tonight is the interplay between his two fastballs — a straight, two-seam fastball and a cutter. The two-seamer will have less movement and get as high as the mid-90s on the radar gun, while the cutter will show a lot of tail (or at least, Buchholz' version tends to) and stay in the lower 90s. He'll base everything else he does on keeping the hitters off balance by mixing those two pitches, but he also features a slider than can be devastating when it's on, and a changeup that's largely just a show-me pitch.
7:12 p.m. ET: We have first pitch! And for those wondering, the temperature at the beginning of the contest is 76 degrees with 83 percent humidity and mild winds blowing out to the east.
6:30 p.m. ET: Well, unfortunately for the Red Sox they won't have the benefit of Jacoby Ellsbury's speed in the lineup on Saturday, as the center fielder will sit with a non-specific leg issue. However, Boston has a great replacement available in Ryan Kalish and the former top prospect will slide right into Ellsbury's center field and leadoff roles.
Beyond that, Jarrod Saltalmacchia returns from his issues with an ear infection and will start as the designated hitter, meaning Kelly Shoppach starts behind the plate and the Sox rely on Ryan Lavarnway as the backup.
Also of note is the fact that Mike Aviles will start over Pedro Ciriaco at shortstop. There have been some questions lately as to which one of the duo deserves the starting role, but — as this live blogger wrote previously — it isn't much of a contest, with Aviles the vastly superior hitter. In fact, since Ciriaco's first four games with Boston (in which he went 10-for-18), the 26-year-old has posted an ugly .583 OPS in 60 at-bats — without taking a single walk.
Check out the lineups for both teams, below:
Red Sox
Ryan Kalish, CF
Carl Crawford, LF
Dustin Pedroia, 2B
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Cody Ross, RF
Jarrod Saltalamacchia, DH
Mike Aviles, SS
Kelly Shoppach, C
Nick Punto, 3B
Clay Buchholz, RHP
Twins
Denard Span, CF
Ben Revere, RF
Joe Mauer, 1B
Justin Morneau, DH
Ryan Doumit, C
Darin Mastroianni, LF
Brian Dozier, SS
Alexi Casilla, 2B
Jamey Carroll, 3B
Cole De Vries, RHP
8 a.m. ET: The Red Sox lost a heartbreaker to the Twins on Friday night. But the defeat came as the fault of none but their own.
Boston stranded 10 base runners and went a miserable 3-for-14 with runners in scoring positon, yet again proving their inability in the clutch. It was an awful defeat and seemed to dim the spirits of the team even further in the clubhouse afterward.
Clay Buchholz could change that attitude on Saturday night, taking the hill in search of his 10th win on the season. He's arguably been the Sox most consistent pitcher over the past two months and could be just the pitcher to break the dreaded streak the team currently finds themselves muddled in.
Tune into NESN starting at 6 p.m. for Red Sox pregame show, and stick around to catch all the game action with first pitch at 7:10 p.m.
