Doubront, Red Sox defeat Twins

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Boston starter Felix Doubront limited Minnesota to two hits in four innings and Jarrod Saltalamacchia hit a two-run homer in the fourth in the second of the Red Sox’s two split-squad games Friday, a 5-0 night victory over the Minnesota Twins.

The Red Sox also played to a 3-3, 10-inning tie with Baltimore in the afternoon.

Doubront had four strikeouts and walked one.

“My arm felt pretty good,” Doubront said. “Little bit off in the first inning but I figured it out later, hitter after hitter. My control was a little bit off, but I finished strong. I worked with more tempo and finished strong.”

Twins right-hander Liam Hendriks gave up three runs on five hits in four innings.

“I felt really good, fastball command was extremely good tonight,” Hendriks said. “You look at it, first hitter, (Jacoby) Ellsbury, jammed him, got the ball back and it had a little bit of pine tar on it. So I got it in there. He just turned on it a little bit. First two hits, I mean, jam shot and a rollover ground ball that just found the right spot.”

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire would like to have seen Hendriks throw a better mix of pitches.

“Hendriks threw the ball good,” Gardenhire said. “But didn’t really change his speeds much. All fastballs tonight. Really weren’t many spinners in there, changeups, nothing. I mean, it’s pretty impressive that you can throw all fastballs, but it doesn’t really work. You’ve got to mix in your other stuff. We noticed that quite a bit. His fastball, he located it and it was down, which was a good thing. Made one mistake to Salty. He killed it. But for the most part, he was efficient.”

Tags: sports, twins, mlb