He has been replaced in right field by Michael Martinez. The Twins didn’t reach base against the knuckleballer until the fifth and finished with five hits.
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Betts left Friday’s matchup with the Twins in the fifth inning due to soreness in his right knee, Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald reports.
The former Missouri Tigers ace allowed a pair of hits in the first inning then none over the next seven as the Minnesota Twins edged Boston 2-1 Friday night.
“I definitely wanted to go back out, but I respect that guy a lot”, Gibson said of his manager. “That’s a tough lineup to navigate”.
His last start at Fenway came four years ago with Miami, a nine-run debacle over 3 1/3 innings of a 15-5 loss on June 20, 2012. Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Junior added homers in Boston’s third straight victory. Betts doubled home a run in the eighth before Pedroia singled in another, and Ortiz completed the scoring with a two-run homer over the bullpens in right field.
Unsurprisingly, David Ortiz has been a problem for Nolasco – as he has been for so many other pitchers.
“It’s not like I drew it up like that”.
That would be all there was between the two teams until the ninth, when the Red Sox staged a big last-second comeback attempt. Hall of Famer and Minnesota legend Rod Carew threw the ceremonial first pitch….
Tommy Layne pitched a clean ninth to preserve the one-run deficit for Boston. “He settled down, minimized the damage in the first, and then he just started making pitch after pitch, inning after inning”. Gibson quickly cooled off Boston’s batters after the scare in the first. He had a quick response when asked what Gibson was throwing that made him so effective. “If the game would have been that easy, it wouldn’t be the way it is”. “If our defense is going to play like that and offense is going to scrape a couple runs when they need to, I think we can get on a run”. They know how to get stuff done. “Whenever that happens, that’s always going to help you go on a run”. These two have pushed or hit the over in all four games, with three of the games going over 10.5 runs.
In his only previous start in Boston in 2014, Gibson retired the first 14 Red Sox batters before Daniel Nava ended his flawless game bid with a ground-rule double. Twins OF Reynaldo Rodriguez returned from his 80-game suspension on Thursday for using a banned performance-enhancing substance and was assigned to Single-A Advanced Fort Myers. Minnesota hands the ball to a red hot Ricky Nolasco who sees the Red Sox for the first time in 2016. The Red Sox announced a few minutes later that Betts had left the game and was considered day-to-day.
“We wouldn’t take any risks with Mookie, certainly”, Farrell said. The temperature at gametime was 92 degrees. Manager Paul Molitor said Suzuki should return Saturday.
Junichi Tazawa entered to pitch the eighth inning after being activated from the DL today.
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Liriano (6-9) gave up three runs and four hits in 6 2/3 innings and didn’t issue a walk for just the second time in 19 starts.
