Boston Red Sox’s Vaughn Grissom celebrates after his two-run double against the Minnesota Twins in the eighth inning of a baseball game Sunday, May 5, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)
MINNEAPOLIS – The last time the Red Sox faced Twins starting pitcher Joe Ryan in Minnesota, he tossed a complete-game shutout.
As such, the laws of cosmic balance in the universe dictated a much-needed big day for the Boston bats. After a three-game losing streak in which they scored no more than two runs in any contest and a six-game stretch without a home run, the Red Sox erupted for nine runs on 11 hits. The 9-2 victory was their 20th win of the season, and snapped the Twins’ win streak at 12 games, their longest since 1980.
“I’m very happy for this one,” a thrilled Alex Cora said postgame. “We did a good job, man. This one, that was a cool win, let’s put it that way.”
Ryan was perfect through the first three innings in Sunday’s series finale.
And then, he wasn’t. Trailing 1-0 in the fourth, Jarren Duran got the hit parade started with a leadoff double and advanced to third on Rafael Devers’ first-pitch groundout. Rob Refsnyder brought an end to 11 consecutive scoreless innings with a line drive, which deflected off Carlos Correa’s glove and into the left-field corner. Duran scored the tying run easily, and Refsnyder slid into second with a double.
(Refsnyder exited the game after the fifth with hamstring tightness, but both he and Alex Cora described the situation as “precautionary.”)
In the following frame, Reese McGuire singled and advanced to second on an error by the third baseman. He was caught stealing third, but the Red Sox successfully challenged, so when Ceddanne Rafaela stepped up to the plate and hit the team’s first home run since their 17-0 victory on April 27, they took a 3-1 lead.
“Reese, he almost gave me a heart attack when he took it to third, but he was safe. I don’t know how,” Cora said.
Ryan’s start lasted six innings. He exited charged with three runs on six hits, one walk, and five strikeouts, but his replacement, Kody Funderburk, would fare worse. After getting the Red Sox to strand McGuire, who’d singled again in the top of the seventh, Funderburk faced eight Boston batters in the eighth. The Twins reliever got Duran to ground out sharply, then gave up a single to Devers, a pinch-hit double to Tyler O’Neill to put both men in scoring position, and walked Wilyer Abreu to load the bases.
Sunday was only Vaughn Grissom’s second game in a Red Sox uniform after a groin strain cost him the entire slate of spring training games and the entire first month of the regular season. The already-lean infielder was slated to debut against the San Francisco Giants earlier in the week, then got the flu and lost 14 pounds. He’s been trying to regain the weight by eating more and drinking shakes, but after a big breakfast on Sunday morning, he threw up on the field before the game.
“Yeah, first time for that,” he said. “Stuck through it and just fought it out.”
Grissom’s perseverance was rewarded in the eighth. He doubled high off the centerfield wall for his first career Red Sox hit, driving in a pair and giving Boston some much-needed insurance.
Unsure if he had a grand slam or just extra bases, he gently flipped his bat before taking off down the first-base line.
“It was like, a hopeful pimp,” he explained, referring to the style of reacting to a home run. “It was like an ‘About time something’s gotten down’ pimp, you know? There’s two types of pimps, in my opinion. One where you know it and you stay in the box and you’re like, heck yeah, and then the other one where you hit it and you’re like, ‘yeah finally’ and then you run really fast. That was the one I chose.”
The 23-year-old infielder would’ve had a grand slam in Cincinnati, Detroit, Houston, the Bronx, Philadelphia, or Toronto, but the Sox got those additional two runs in anyway when Dom Smith skied one to left and Manuel Margot wasn’t able to make the catch in the afternoon sunlight. It was oddly fitting for the date: On May 5, 2018, then-Sox closer Craig Kimbrel became the youngest and fastest pitcher to join MLB’s 300 Saves Club. Margot had been one of the Red Sox prospects sent to the Padres in the November 2015 trade.
The Sox offense’s big day was complemented by another strong pitching performance by Cooper Criswell, who dominated in his fourth start. Though he wasn’t able to extend his streak of starts of five shutout innings to three, he held the Twins to one earned run over 4 ⅓ innings, giving up five hits, one walk, and striking out five. The lone blemish on his outing was a solo homer by Ryan Jeffers, which gave the Twins a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third.
The right-hander showed impressive mettle in the bottom of the second, when he began the frame by giving up three consecutive singles to load the bases, then got back to back strikeouts and a dribbling force-out to strand everyone.
“In the moment (I) was trying to get a ground-ball double-play, and then once you get to two strikes, try go get a swing-and miss pitch,” Criswell said. The usually soft-spoken, mellow right-hander walked off the mound considerably more animated than usual, leading to some lighthearted teasing in the dugout.
“I was pretty pumped,” he said, smiling. “Some of the guys were joking around, saying that I looked like one of those car dealership, the inflatable things, running around.”
If not for the lengthy second inning, which pushed the Sox starter’s pitch count to 35, he might have gone a full five. But after the righty gave up a leadoff double to Carlos Santana and got the first out, Alex Cora called upon Saturday’s opener, Brennan Bernardino, and he quickly got the last two outs. Zack Kelly, Cam Booser, Josh Winckowski, and Kenley Jansen pitched the rest of the way.
“Tough weekend with basically three bullpen games in four games,” Cora said. “Some guys became big-leaguers this weekend… Coop did an outstanding job. Berny opened yesterday, came in today in a big spot, did an outstanding job. (Booser) did the same thing.”
Before Jansen took the mound for the bottom of the ninth, the lineup gave him one last boost. Duran lined a one-out triple to the right-field corner, becoming the first player with at least five triples in the team’s first 35 games of a season since Ellis Burks in 1989. Boston’s leadoff man was able to stroll home seconds later when Devers torched his fourth home run of the season, a 407-footer that blazed off the bat at a cool 108.7 mph.
“I was joking with the guys – we got a bunch of new coaches – I’m like, Raffy never leaves Minnesota without hitting a homer,” Cora said.
“These are the cool ones. I know we lost two out of three, but we played good baseball throughout,” the Sox skipper added. “As a manager, these are very gratifying because you use everybody. You start planning Sunday on Saturday midway through the game, and how are we gonna accomplish this? Losing two out of three sucks here, but winning this one is very gratifying. It took a total team effort.”