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Twins get to Beckett, beat Red Sox

Sep 28, 2007 - 4:13 AM BOSTON (Ticker) -- Josh Beckett picked a bad time for his worst outing of the second half.

Beckett was touched for five runs and a pair of homers as the Red Sox dropped a 5-4 decision to the Minnesota Twins, missing a chance to trim another game off their magic number to clinch the American League East.

With the New York Yankees (92-67) picking up a win at Tampa Bay, Boston's magic number remains at two with three games to play. Should the two teams end with identical records, the Yankees would be declared division champions due to their superior head-to-head record against the Red Sox (94-65).

"We have so much going on on our field that we have to worry about ourselves," Varitek said when asked if the team was scoreboard watching.

The Twins put single runs on the board in five of the first six innings and got a solid out from starter Boof Bonser (8-12), who allowed three runs in five innings to earn the win.

Beckett (20-7), who leads the majors in wins, was looking to lock up his first career Cy Young award with a solid outing, but got off to a rocky start, allowing at least two hits and a run in each of the first three frames.

"I had a good year, but there are other guys who've had good years too," Beckett said of his Cy Young chances. "That is something that I can't control."

The 27-year-old righthander, who had earned wins in each of his last four outings, allowed 10 hits and five runs while striking out six and not issuing a walk. It was just the fourth time this season that he had allowed double-digit hits and just the third time he allowed more than one homer.

"It was a lot of things, but the biggest was fastball command," Beckett said of what went wrong. "When I tried throwing them on the corners it would just go off the plate or just in the middle and they are a good fastball hitting team."

"His command was off, that was first and foremost, and that hasn't happened too many times this year," catcher Jason Varitek said.

Minnesota got on the board in the first when Jason Bartlett led off the game with a single and came around to score on Jason Kubel's triple to deep center.

The lead was short-lived, as the Red Sox countered with a pair of runs in the bottom half. David Ortiz, who went 4-for-4, doubled home Manny Ramirez and came around to score on J.D. Drew's RBI single to center.

The Twins pulled even in the second when Michael Cuddyer led off with a blast to left field and grabbed a 4-2 lead when Torii Hunter drove in single runs in the third and fifth frames.

"That was exciting," Hunter said. "It felt like a playoff atmosphere, something we are not playing for right now, but it actually felt good to get that victory."

Ortiz cut the lead in half with a solo homer in the fifth - his 34th blast of the season - deep into the seats in right field.

But rookie Garrett Jones countered in the sixth with a solo blast, his second career homer, to push the Twins lead back to 5-3.

Bonser was lifted after the fifth and charged with six hits while walking two and striking out a pair. The 25-year-old righthander is now 3-2 over his last six starts after a 12-start winless streak from June 16 to August 18.

"It was definitely a big win," Bonser said. "We are not going out easy. We are going to come in and try to win every game we can, and who knows? Maybe play the role of spoiler."

"Bonser gave us five hard innings," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "(He) had a rough first one but we got through it. I think he just relaxed and started just nice and smooth. He was kind of overthrowing a little bit, trying to find the zone, didn't have his breaking ball and 39 pitches in the first, and it looked like we would never get out of it."

Boston mounted a comeback in the late innings when Jason Varitek homered in the bottom of the eighth to cut the lead to 5-4. The Red Sox then loaded the bases with one out in the ninth against Minnesota All-Star closer Joe Nathan, but Varitek and Kevin Youkilis both struck out to end the contest.

"I was able to concentrate, keep making pitches and fortunately was able to get a big punchout against him (Varitek), and then obviously Youkilis, another great hitter who has a great eye so I really wanted to work ahead of him," Nathan said.

"We gave ourselves a real good opportunity in the ninth, in the eighth too, but Nathan made some real good pitches when he had to," Boston manager Terry Francona said.

Three Twins relievers bridged the gap to Nathan, who pitched the final 1 1/3 innings to earn his 36th save of the season.

To add injury to insult, Boston rookie Jacoby Ellsbury was removed from the game in the fifth inning with cramping in his right calf.