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Wednesday, Apr. 12 6:05pm ET
Red Sox rough up rookie Santana | |||||
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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
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GAME LOG
BOSTON (AP) -- The Red Sox got Carl Everett for his glove as well as his bat and on Wednesday night he produced with both. The center fielder drove in two runs with singles and saved three with a bases-loaded backhanded catch in deep left-center field as Boston extended its winning streak to three games with a 7-3 win over the Minnesota Twins. "We all knew what he was capable of doing," Boston shortstop Nomar Garciaparra said. "We all knew he was a great player and he's come out and done it." The Twins nearly broke open a scoreless game when they loaded the bases with no outs in the second on singles by Matt LeCroy, Corey Koskie and Torii Hunter. Then Jason Maxwell hit the ball and Everett got an excellent jump. He reached out and snared it in the end of his glove. "I knew I had it," said Everett, traded from Houston after hitting .325 last season. "It was just a question of was I going to slide at the wall or was I going to continue to run." Had the ball dropped safely, three Twins almost certainly would have scored and Boston starter Jeff Fassero (1-0) might have been lifted from the game. Instead, Maxwell got a sacrifice fly and Fassero got out of the jam. "We had some hard hit balls and they made plays," Maxwell said. "They had a lot of good plays out there." Darren Lewis made a running catch in the right-field corner, second baseman Jose Offerman made a strong throw for an out on a grounder behind second base and third baseman Wilton Veras made a diving stop. There also was plenty of offense for the second straight day, as Everett and Garciaparra, Boston's two best hitters, finally are acting the part. Both went 2-for-4 and Garciaparra drove in three runs one day after going 4-for-5 with three RBI in a 13-4 win over the Twins. Garciaparra, last year's AL batting champion, was 4-for-22 with no RBI in his first six games and said he's not doing anything different. He attributed his success to "better aim." Everett, who hit .189 in spring training, is 5-for-8 with two homers and five RBI in the two games against Minnesota. He's hitting .464 and has hit in all eight games this season. One day after scoring eight runs in 1 1/3 innings against 24-year-old starter Joe Mays, the Red Sox spoiled 21-year-old Johan Santana's second major league start with seven runs in 3 2/3 innings. "At the beginning, I was having trouble feeling my hands" in the chilly weather, Santana said. "And the first few pitches, my eyes were watering because of the wind. I wear contacts. I couldn't see where (the ball) was going when I threw it." Fassero left with a 7-3 lead after five innings and got his first win since signing as a free agent after spending last season with Seattle and Texas, where he was a combined 5-14 with a 7.20 ERA. Boston scored the tying run in the second on the first of Troy O'Leary's two doubles, a single by Everett and a sacrifice fly by former Twin Gary Gaetti, who is 0-for-10 in his first season with Boston. Then the Red Sox, who had an eight-run second inning Tuesday, scored five in the third for a 6-1 lead. Offerman and Lewis singled and both scored on Garciaparra's double. Mike Stanley singled before O'Leary doubled in one run and Everett singled in two. Minnesota made it 6-3 in the fourth on a single by Maxwell, a triple by Cristian Guzman over Everett's head and a single by Denny Hocking. Rheal Cormier replaced Fassero after the fifth and pitched two perfect innings before Derek Lowe pitched the last two. Boston's final run came across in the fourth on Garciaparra's RBI single. Game notesThe only inning in which the Twins have totaled more runs than their opponents is the ninth. ... In the fifth inning, Offerman drew his 10th walk in 17 plate appearances. ... Everett reached base on seven of his eight at-bats in the series before striking out in the seventh. He had two homers, a double, two singles, a walk and reached on an error. ... Gaetti is among 40 current or former Twins players, officials or media members pictured on the cover of their media guide. ... Minnesota committed an error for the seventh consecutive game. ... Twins reliever Hector Carrasco pitched 4 1/3 innings of hitless ball. | ALSO SEE Baseball Scoreboard Minnesota Clubhouse Boston Clubhouse RECAPS NY Yankees 8 Texas 6
Boston 7
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