{"id":15317,"date":"2011-05-07T10:14:03","date_gmt":"2011-05-07T15:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15317"},"modified":"2011-05-07T10:14:03","modified_gmt":"2011-05-07T15:14:03","slug":"minnesota-twins-at-boston-red-sox-free-mlb-picks-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/minnesota-twins-at-boston-red-sox-free-mlb-picks-predictions-15317\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota Twins at Boston Red Sox Free MLB Picks & Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox look to gain revenge from an opening series loss to the Minnesota Twins on Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park<\/p>\n

Minnesota Twins at Boston Red Sox<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Boston Red Sox continue to struggle during the 2011 season<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Minnesota is 3-3 on its current road trip after being swept in a three-game series at Kansas City, sweeping a two-game series versus the White Sox in Chicago and winning the first game in Boston last night.\u00a0 The Twins recorded their highest road run total Friday with nine runs and ended their seven-game skid at Fenway Park.\u00a0 \u201cWe slapped the ball around.\u00a0 They made a couple of mistakes and we took advantage of it,\u201d manager Ron Gardenhire commented.\u00a0 \u201cI can\u2019t remember who got all the hits, but we beat it around pretty good.\u201d\u00a0 The club combined for 12 hits and went 5-for-17 with runners in scoring position.\u00a0 Minnesota is 6-7 in day games and 7-14 against right-handed starters.<\/p>\n

Twins starting pitcher Brian Duensing is 2-1 with a 2.91 ERA in five starts this season and is making his fourth road start of the 2011 campaign.\u00a0 The left-hander has tallied a 1-0 record and 4.37 ERA in six career starts against AL East opponents, with Minnesota going 3-3 in those games.\u00a0 Duensing has tossed 6.0-plus innings in 16 of his last 17 starts and has posted a 12-3 mark and 2.36 ERA in those contests.\u00a0 Left-handed batters have a tough time against him, combining for a .162 batting average against in 2010, which was the second-lowest of any left-handed pitcher in the Majors.\u00a0 He is making his first career start versus the Red Sox, as he has no record and allowed a single earned run in 2.1 innings pitched against them.<\/p>\n

Boston continues its longest homestand of the season tonight and is 3-5 in the 11-day, 11-game stretch at Fenway Park.\u00a0 The Red Sox offense has yet to make noise like it did during the 2010 campaign, when it finished second in the majors in runs (818), home runs (211) and slugging percentage (.451).\u00a0 The unit ranks ninth in the AL in runs and is tied for eighth in round trippers.\u00a0 \u201cI think one of the things we\u2019ve got to play better baseball overall, pay attention to detail,\u201d said first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.\u00a0 \u201cWe are going to be able to outslug and outplay teams just on talent alone.\u201d\u00a0 Boston is 8-9 at home this season.<\/p>\n

Red Sox starting pitcher Clay Buchholz is 2-3 with a 4.81 ERA in six starts this season and threw his first quality start of 2011 last time out versus the Angels.\u00a0 In that particular outing, the right-hander earned the win by giving up two runs and eight hits over 6.2 innings.\u00a0 Buchholz has compiled an impressive 7-2 record in 10 career starts in May, as his .778 winning percentage is the best of any month during the regular season.\u00a0 He is an even 1-1 with a 6.57 ERA in two starts versus Minnesota, but captured his only victory against them at Fenway Park by surrendering just two runs over eight frames.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely aim for a price and back the Twins due to their 4-1 record in Duensing\u2019s last five starts, while the Red Sox are 1-10 versus the AL Central.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox look to gain revenge from an opening series loss to the Minnesota Twins on Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park Minnesota Twins at Boston Red Sox Minnesota is 3-3 on its current road trip after being swept in a three-game series at Kansas City, sweeping a two-game series versus the White Sox […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[69,2612,1023,1013,240],"class_list":["post-15317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-brian-duensing","tag-clay-buchholz","tag-fenway-park","tag-minnesota-twins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15317"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15319,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15317\/revisions\/15319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}