« Updated at 4:46 p.m.: Clemens returning to Yankees
Main
Baseball Today: Monday, May 7 »
May 6, 2007
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS -- The last thing Minnesota's struggling, short-handed offense needed was a date with Curt Schilling.
Boston's ace tied a season high with seven strikeouts and the Red Sox hung on for a 4-3 victory over the Twins on Sunday.
Schilling (4-1) allowed three runs and eight hits in 6 2/3 innings, and Dustin Pedroia went 3-for-4 with two doubles for the Red Sox, who took two of three from a Twins team that scored just five runs in the series.
Minnesota starter Sidney Ponson (2-4) gave up four runs, three earned, and eight hits in 5 1/3 innings. He walked four.
Jason Tyner's two-run single with two outs in the seventh chased Schilling. Torii Hunter added an RBI single off Hideki Okajima to cut Boston's lead to 4-3. But AL MVP Justin Morneau grounded out to end the inning, and Jonathan Papelbon pitched the ninth for his 10th save in 11 tries.
Hunter extended his career-high hitting streak to 21 games with an infield single in the sixth, but the Twins are sorely missing two big hitters in the middle of the lineup.
Reigning AL batting champ Joe Mauer missed his second straight game with a strained left quadriceps muscle and cleanup hitter Michael Cuddyer has missed five in a row with a bruised back.
Schilling took advantage, cruising through the first six innings to help the Red Sox maintain their 5 1/2-game cushion over the New York Yankees in an AL East race that got a lot more interesting on Sunday with Roger Clemens' announcement that he will pitch in pinstripes this season.
The Yankees made the move to bolster an injury-depleted pitching staff. With Clemens, they hope to compete with Boston's strong rotation. Schilling headlines a group that includes Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Tim Wakefield, and the Red Sox (20-10) are off to one of the best starts in franchise history.
The Twins have plenty of questions in their rotation behind ace Johan Santana. Ponson, the 6-foot-1, 258-pound right-hander from Aruba, might be the biggest. They signed him in the offseason in hopes that he could provide some veteran stability at the back end of the rotation.
Ponson got off to a shaky start when he gave up a leadoff single to Coco Crisp, hit Alex Cora with a pitch that nearly went behind him and walked David Ortiz. Cora scored on a double by J.D. Drew.
After Ponson struck out the side in the second, the Red Sox went up 2-0 in the third when Pedroia doubled and scored on a single by Kevin Youkilis.
They added two more in the fifth thanks to a throwing error by Ponson.
With runners on first and third and none out, Mike Lowell hit a bouncer back to Ponson. The pitcher hesitated, then tried to start a double play, but his throw to second was low and all the runners were safe.
Ponson smacked himself in the head after the play, and the Red Sox parlayed the error into a two-run inning that made it 4-0, giving Schilling just enough support.
Notes: Before the game, a scoring change was announced on a play in the ninth inning of Saturday night's game. Twins 3B Nick Punto was initially charged with an error when a ball hit by Youkilis squirted under his glove in the hole between shortstop and third base. On Sunday, Youkilis was credited with a hit, and the error was wiped off Punto's record.
Posted by Art Martone 
at 5:30 PM | Permalink
