Twins 6, Red Sox 1

This game was a no show for the Red Sox offense and that's why they lost this game along with some terrible defense. If not for a 9th inning solo home run by Salty this game would have been a shutout. Scott Diamond isn't a bad pitcher, but he's not a great one either. He's certainly not good enough that he should be pitching 7 innings of shut out baseball while only allowing 3 hits and no walks. The Red Sox pitching obviously could have been better given the 6 runs on the board, but only 3 of those runs were earned runs and they were sunk by costly errors from Pedro Ciriaco and Salty. To add injury to insult, a collision on a foul ball between Will Middlebrooks and David Ross caused both players to be pulled from the game. It doesn't seem that either injury is serious, but the errors made by their replacements were costly in this game.

The fact that four runs came across on Dempster's watch is a bit deceiving. Only two of the runs were earned and Craig Breslow allowed two of the runners he inherited from Dempster to score. To start off the 8th Pedro Ciriaco had back to back errors to allow the batters to reach. I think it might be a good idea to not play Ciriaco at 3rd base again. So essentially Dempster went 7 innings, gave up 2 runs and left the game in the 8th with two baserunners on that weren't his fault anyways. That's technically a high quality start from Dempster.
STARTING PITCHING GRADE: B+

Craig Breslow came on for his second appearance in the 8th with 2 runner on and nobody out. It's a tough situation, but Breslow didn't rise to the challenge at all. Double, Walk, Single, Single; and it's now a 5-0 game. Alex Wilson came on still looking for that first out in the 8th inning. He was able to get a fielder's choice for the first out, but a throwing error by Salty put another run across. Wilson wrapped up the 8th and also pitched a clean 9th. This is a tough one to grade since Breslow was about as bad as could be and Wilson was about as good as could be expected.
BULLPEN GRADE: C

The Red Sox bats were the big disappointment in this game. Scott Diamond is a solid pitcher, but he looked like Justin Verlander last night against the Sox lineup. Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli, Jonny Gomes, Will Middlebrooks, Pedro Ciriaco and David Ross all went hitless/walkless in this game. Jacoby Ellsbury was the only player to get on base more than once this game. That's just unacceptable. The lone run came on a leadoff solo home run from Salty in the 9th. Too little, too late unfortunately.
BATTING GRADE: F