Xander Bogaerts hit a grand slam and drove in five runs and J.D. Martinez also homered as the Boston Red Sox jumped out to a five-run lead and then held on for a 6-5 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Thursday night in Minneapolis.
Bogaerts also doubled and stole a base while extended his hitting streak at Target Field to 18 games, the longest for an opposing player in the stadium’s history. It also was his sixth multi-hit game in his past seven games.
Boston’s Kevin Plawecki went 3-for-4 with a double and scored two runs, and Trevor Story also had three hits. The Red Sox snapped a three-game losing streak while winning for just the third time in the past 10 games.
Michael Wacha (10-1) won his fourth consecutive start, allowing two runs on four hits over six innings. He walked one and struck out seven. Matt Barnes pitched around a leadoff single and a walk to open the ninth and wound up with his fourth save.
Luis Arraez homered and drove in three runs, Nick Gordon had two doubles and two RBIs and Gio Urshela and Max Kepler each added two hits for Minnesota, which had its five-game winning streak end. Joe Ryan (10-7) gave up five runs on eight hits over five innings while striking out eight and walking one.
Boston took a 5-0 lead in the third inning.
Bogaerts started the scoring with his sixth career grand slam, a line drive into the front row of the left field bleachers that registered at 113 mph, the hardest hit homer of the Statcast era (since 2015). It was his 12th home run of the season and also broke a tie with Nomar Garciaparra and Vern Stephens for most grand slams by a Red Sox shortstop.
Martinez followed one out later with his 11th homer of the season.
After Arraez cut it to 5-2 in the bottom of the third with a two-run homer, Bogaerts extended the lead to 6-2 in the sixth. His two-out double drove in Plawecki, who had opened the inning with a double.
Arraez made it 6-3 in the seventh with a sacrifice fly, knocking in Gordon, who had doubled. Gordon added a two-run double off the right field wall in the eighth to cut the deficit to one, but he was thrown out at third trying to stretch it into a triple.
–Field Level Media
