BOSTON – Trevor Plouffe welcomed himself back to the majors with a big hit.
Plouffe hit his first homer of the season and Scott Baker pitched eight strong innings for the Minnesota Twins, who capitalized on several Boston blunders in a 9-2 win over the Red Sox on Friday night.
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Plouffe, recalled this week from Triple-A Rochester, hit a knuckleball from Tim Wakefield over the Green Monster in the first inning, sparking one of Minnesota’s best offensive performances of the season.
It was the third major league homer for Plouffe, who hit two during callups late last summer.
“There’s really no way to prepare for a guy like Tim,” Plouffe said. “That’s not really what I was trying to do, to be honest with you, with two strikes against him. He got a pitch up and there was a little jet stream going out there, so it was nice.”
The Twins finished with 12 hits and got a sharp performance from Baker (2-2), who allowed seven hits, struck out eight and walked one.
Minnesota scored twice on balks and took advantage of a pair of errors by the Red Sox, who have allowed 21 runs in their last two games.
J.D. Drew homered in the second and Adrian Gonzalez went deep in the fourth, but that was all the offense for Boston, which has lost three straight.
Red Sox Manager Terry Francona was ejected in the second inning after Wakefield (0-1) was called for a balk. Wakefield allowed eight runs, six earned, and nine hits in 41/3 innings.
“I had a little trouble today,” Wakefield said. “Obviously I walked four guys and couldn’t find the strike zone and when I did, one ball was hit out of the park and the other one was a double.”
The Twins were one short of their season high for hits and runs. They also got a little help from the Red Sox, who fell to 3-5 on an 11-game homestand.
“We slapped the ball around. They made a couple of mistakes and we took advantage of it,” Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire said. “I can’t remember who got all the hits, but we beat it around pretty good. It was all the way up and down the lineup, which is a good thing.”
The Twins scored three in the second after loading the bases with no outs. Wakefield nearly got out of it by getting Drew Butera to fly out and striking out Alexi Casilla, but Denard Span got a grounder past first baseman Gonzalez and two runs scored.
Francona was ejected for storming out to argue the decision, which he proceeded to do for several minutes after Hernandez tossed him. Crew chief Joe West kept Francona away from Hernandez and was bumped a few times while Francona fumed.
Francona was more critical of West than Hernandez after the game.
“That was me and Angel. Joe didn’t have anything to do with it. I didn’t really appreciate what he did,” Francona said. “He was grabbing me. I didn’t appreciate that. I thought it was wrong. I thought he was out of line.”
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