Red Sox 3, Twins 2: Sam Travis comes through in the clutch

After the lineup failed to do much of anything in this afternoon’s game against the Cardinals, the night lineup didn’t fare much better. They managed to smack five hits in the afternoon, and followed that up with five more at night across town against Minnesota. Half of those hits came from one player in Ivan De Jesus Jr., who contributed a double and a single while also knocking in a run. He also made a hell of a leaping catch at second base. De Jesus was brought in on a minor-league contract right before spring, and while he’s not likely to play much of a role in 2018 he is solid break-in-case-of-emergency depth. The biggest hit of the game came in the ninth when Sam Travis, the greatest Grapefruit League player of all time, smashed an RBI double to give the Red Sox a 3-2 lead. Hanley Ramirez also got a double as he tries to prove he deserves the bulk of the playing time at first base while Rusney Castillo led the game off with a single. Despite only tallying five hits and one walk (Kyri Washington in the ninth), the Red Sox did score three runs in this game thanks largely to some bad defense on Minnesota’s part. The Twins committed three errors on Tuesday and only one of the three runs Boston scored was charged to a Twins pitcher.

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