In the drenched field of Fenway, hours since their 10-1 lost to the Red Sox midday, the night game of the doubleheader provided little solace for the visiting Twins.  Boston jumped all over Twins starter Francisco Liriano who gave up seven earned runs in four innings of work, once again forcing manager Ron Gardenhire to summon his bullpen in the early innings for the second time in one day. 

 

Liriano would strike out six Sox batters but would find that his four free passes would come back to haunt him as three of the four baserunners would eventually score.  The once lauded Liriano now drops to 0-4 with a swollen 7.04 ERA in his four starts this year.  Reliever Jose Mijares made a brief appearance, his first since his recall from Rochester and pitched a scoreless frame in the eighth.   

The Twins offense, which mustered just a single run in the afternoon game, managed to piece together three runs in the night edition.  For the Twins, the five through nine hitters combined to go 1-for-16 as first baseman Justin Morneau generated most of the offense for the team. Morneau would hit his third home run of the year off of Red Sox starter Brad Penny in the top of the fourth and Brian Buscher would reach on a Nick Green throwing error to score Jason Kubel to cut the lead to 5-2 but Boston would answer with another pair of runs in the bottom of the inning.  The only other Twins run came on a Michael Cuddyer groundout to score Morneau from third in the sixth inning.

 

With their 2009 trip to Boston safely in their rearview mirrors, the Twins will use Thursday as another offday to recuperate and will begin a three-game series in Cleveland starting on Friday.