Bailey Ober had a strong start on the mound but the Minnesota Twins had another quiet afternoon at the plate in Sunday’s 8-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox.
Ober was a bright spot for the Twins, allowing two unearned runs in six innings of work. His fastball was on point, registering seven of his 11 swings and misses on the afternoon and leading the way for five shutout innings to begin the game.
With three strikeouts and a walk, Ober provided some good news for the Twins pitching staff, who lost Sonny Gray to the injured list after leaving Saturday’s game with a strained hamstring.
But for as well as Ober was pitching, Michael Wacha was on the same level for the Red Sox. The right-hander threw five shutout innings with a pair of strikeouts and could have stayed in the game longer if it weren’t for a 15-pitch at-bat by Carlos Correa in the fourth inning.
With both teams deadlocked in a scoreless tie, Boston broke through in the bottom of the sixth. A line drive from Rafael Devers went right through the webbing of Miguel Sano’s glove and a double from Xander Bogaerts put runners on second and third base with nobody out.
The Red Sox cashed in with sacrifice flies from J.D. Martinez and Alex Verdugo to take a 2-0 lead and chase Ober from the game.
The Twins mounted a rally in the seventh inning when Max Kepler scored on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Trevor Larnach. But with the bases loaded, Matt Strahm struck out Kyle Garlick to end the threat.
With the Twins down a run, the Red Sox poured it on in the eighth inning. Boston added six runs off Caleb Thielbar and Cody Stashak hits another defensive lapse from Sanó put the game out of reach.
The Twins (3-6) will wrap up their four-game series with the Red Sox with a first pitch of 10:10 a.m. on Monday morning. Minnesota will send Dylan Bundy (1-0, 0.00 ERA) to the mound against Rich Hill (0-0, 6.23 ERA).
