MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - For the second straight night, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire watched as his plan to pitch to David Ortiz unraveled.
Ortiz went 3 for 5 with two home runs, one night after a four-hit, two-homer performance against his former team, and the Boston Red Sox beat the Minnesota Twins 9-4 on Wednesday.
Kevin Correia (1-5) lasted four innings after he allowed nine hits, five earned runs, including one of Ortiz’s home runs.
“We know how we’re supposed to pitch (Ortiz),” Gardenhire said. “When we pitch the ball where we’re supposed to, we can get him out. What did he hit coming in here? .280? People are getting him out.”
Not the Twins. Big Papi is 7 for 10 in back-to-back games. Both of Wednesday’s homers - off Correia in the third and Caleb Thielbar in the fifth - traveled more than 400 feet into the right-field upper deck at Target Field, where he’s batting .528 (28 of 53) in 13 career games.
After Correia, Minnesota’s four relievers only gave up three hits in the final five innings. Thielbar surrendered Ortiz’s second homer before Anthony Swarzak fanned him in the sixth and Michael Tonkin got him to pop out in the ninth.
“You keep throwing the ball out and over, this guy is going to kill you,” Gardenhire said. “And we actually got him out at the end . We threw a ball inside, he moved his feet, and we threw one outside that he didn’t hit.”
Ortiz’s efforts were more than enough for Felix Doubront (2-3), who allowed a run on seven hits in 6 1/3 innings and retired nine straight at one point. Doubront hadn’t won since April 3 at Baltimore, his first start of the season.
Ortiz, who also doubled in the first inning, moved into sole possession of third place on Boston’s all-time homers list (384) and recorded his 43rd career multi-homer game, 41 of which have come with the Red Sox.
Even the Minnesota fans - many of whom likely remember some of the 58 homers he hit with the Twins from 1997-2002 - appreciated Ortiz’s display of power, politely standing and clapping as he rounded the bases after his second homer put Boston up 6-1 in the fifth.
Twins fans didn’t give such applause to Correia, who turned in another poor pitching performance to start off his 2014 campaign. Correia, in the second year of a two-year, $10 million deal with the Twins, has failed to match his start to last season as he’s more than doubled his ERA (6.80) from a year ago.
“Obviously there’s no excuses for how poor my numbers are right now,” Correia said. “I’ve done the opposite in year’s past, started off in one of these streaks and picked it up again.”
Trevor Plouffe hit his second homer of the year for Minnesota, a two-run shot in the ninth.
Joe Mauer’s sacrifice fly in the third scored Eduardo Escobar. Minnesota added an unearned run in the eighth after a throwing error by Burke Badenhop from the mound allowed Chris Parmelee to reach third. He eventually scored on Eduardo Nunez’s RBI single.
Grady Sizemore had two hits and a pair of RBIs; Dustin Pedroia, Mike Napoli and Will Middlebrooks each drove in a run for Boston. A.J. Pierzynski added a two-run double in the ninth.
NOTES: Ortiz’s 442 homers moved him into a tie with Dave Kingman for 39th place on baseball’s all-time home run list. . The Twins reinstated OF Oswaldo Arcia from the 15-day DL and optioned him to Triple-A Rochester. Arcia missed 33 games with a right wrist strain before playing a 12-game rehab assignment in Rochester. … Friday will be a big day for injured Twins players in Rochester. Manager Ron Gardenhire said OF Josh Willingham (broken wrist) will start a rehab assignment, and RHP Mike Pelfrey (groin) will start on Friday for the Red Wings. . The teams will play the rubber third game of their series Thursday when Clay Buchholz (2-3) — who is 3-1 in seven career starts against Minnesota — takes the mound for Boston. The Twins’ Phil Hughes (4-1) will try for his fifth straight win.
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