BOSTON _ It was going so well for Kyle Gibson. Pitching in a ballpark where he's excelled, staked to a three-run lead against a former Cy Young Award winner, backed by a defense that turned a pair of double plays to wipe out his only mistakes, Gibson entered the fourth inning with the path cleared to the signature victory he's so desperately sought.
It took only two pitches for reality to block that path, and kick Gibson in the gut once again.
Mookie Betts belted the second pitch off the light tower atop the Green Monster, setting the tone for Gibson's second trip through the lineup. His 88th and final pitch of the night also left Fenway's playing field, and the Twins' early lead dissolved into a 6-3 loss to Boston that dropped them 1 { games out of first place.
Gibson, improved since his May demotion to the minors but still prone to long, difficult innings, allowed five runs, two of them unearned, in 5 2/3 innings while striking out two. He walked only one batter, but it was a telling one: Hanley Ramirez took a strike and then four straight balls to open the fifth inning, a leadoff walk that inevitably seems to trigger rough waters for the Twins' veteran right-hander.
Sure enough, Jackie Bradley Jr. immediately drove Ramirez home with a double that clanged off Fenway's giant wall and took an odd bounce away from Eddie Rosario. Gibson then got Christian Vazquez to hit a grounder to Jorge Polanco, but the shortstop allowed it to bounce off his glove for an error. Gibson recovered by forcing two more ground outs, the second one driving in the tying run, but then Betts struck again. He smacked a fastball up the middle, just out of the reach of Polanco and Brian Dozier, bringing home Vazquez with the go-ahead run.
Given a second chance, Boston starter David Price wasn't about to squander it. The $200 million left-hander, a Cy Young winner in 2012, allowed only two harmless singles over the last three of his seven innings, striking out three of the last four hitters he faced. In doing so, he atoned for that early Twins lead, since it was, in large measure, his own fault.
That's because after allowing a leadoff double to Robbie Grossman in the fourth inning, Price induced Joe Mauer to hit a ground ball that first baseman Mitch Moreland fielded well behind the bag. Price, making the same mistake that Adalberto Mejia committed twice on Wednesday, stood and watched the play, realizing too late that he needed to cover first base. With nobody to throw to, Moreland couldn't beat Mauer to the bag, a big break for the Twins. Price struck out Miguel Sano (he struck out three times in all) and retired Eduardo Escobar on a fly ball, but made another mistake just one strike away from escaping the jam.
That mistake was a two-strike changeup that Polanco drove about 400 feet off the top of the wall in left-center, a double that allowed both runs to score.
At that point, it seemed like Gibson, who entered the game having allowed only one run in 15 career innings at Fenway Park, might be able to put the game away and salvage a split of the four-game series.
Instead, Boston took the lead, added an insurance run against Twins left-hander Buddy Boshers, and left the Twins to cope with their flame-throwing close-out bullpen: Joe Kelly in the eighth inning, and Boshers' childhood friend, Boston closer Craig Kimbrel, in the ninth for his 22nd save, moving the right-handed one save ahead of Brandon Kintzler for the American League lead.
