Red Sox recap: Twins’ Kody Clemens homers in first Fenway Park appearance in 4-3 win over Boston

Roger Clemens spent 13 seasons playing for the Red Sox, participating in iconic moments while wearing the words Red Sox across his chest.

On Saturday afternoon, another Clemens provided a big moment, silencing the sellout crowd of 36,250 fans at Fenway Park. Kody Clemens belted a two-run homer to right field in the sixth inning that helped propel the Twins to a 4-3 victory over the Red Sox.

With his parents watching from a suite, Clemens jumped all over an 84.4 mph slider over the heart of the plate from Hunter Dobbins and deposited it into the right field seats.

“It’s a big-time home run for us as a team,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “But that’s a sweet moment. He’s got his whole family here. He’s at Fenway Park. Obviously, his dad had so much history in this place with these fans.

“I bet that’ll be one of the biggest moments, no matter what he does. Hopefully he plays for 15 more years, but that’ll be something he never forgets, and I’ll never forget, either.”

Clemens’ two-run blast did damage, snapping a 1-1 tie, and it was his first homer as a member of the Twins. The 28-year-old made his big league debut in 2022, but Saturday afternoon was the first time he played in a game in the same ballpark his father took the mound as the ace of the Red Sox.

“The experience at Fenway is amazing,” Clemens said. “Obviously, I came here before. But to be able to play in the game was super cool. I just had fun out there today. It was awesome.”

With the loss, the Sox are now 4-8 in one-run games, including a four-game losing streak in them.

DOBBINS ON THE BUMP

Dobbins was recalled from Triple-A Worcester after the club put right-handed pitcher Walker Buehler on the injured list with right shoulder inflammation.

The rookie made his third career start and looked good mowing down the Twins the first time through the order. Dobbins needed just seven pitches in the first inning, setting Minnesota down 1-2-3. He worked around a two-out double off the bat of Ryan Jeffers in the second and got the Twins 1-2-3 again in the third.

The Twins tied the game in the fourth following Ty France’s RBI groundout. In the fifth inning, Dobbins managed to escape a bases-loaded situation by getting Carlos Correa to fly out, but Clemens' two-run home run in the sixth inning proved to be his undoing.

Dobbins went 5 2/3 innings, giving up four earned runs off seven hits, walking two, striking out two, and hitting a batter. He threw 92 pitches, 59 for strikes, and owns a 3.78 ERA over his first three big league outings.

Alex Cora said Dobbins had “overall another good outing,” but the righty felt he didn’t have his “best stuff.”

“Felt like I competed, ran out of gas a little bit there in the sixth inning, wasn’t executing as well as I should’ve,” said Dobbins. “You know the name; him and his brother were great ballplayers, and obviously his dad was, too.”

After Clemens’ homer, Harrison Bader singled on a soft grounder to third, and former Sox catcher Christian Vazquez walked, and Cora came out to get the young hurler from the game.

Brennan Bernardino allowed leadoff man Trevor Larnach to drive in one of Dobbins’ runners with an RBI single before getting out of the inning. Greg Weissert worked the seventh after a one-hour and 12-minute rain delay.

BOSTON BATS CAME TO LIFE LATE

Similar to Friday night, the Sox’ bats waited until the Twins summoned their bullpen to come alive. Twins starter Bailey Ober allowed just one run in the first six innings, but the rain delay cut his outing short. Ober’s replacement, Brock Stewart, opened the bottom of the seventh by hitting Connor Wong with a pitch and gave up an RBI triple to Jarren Duran.

The Sox’ leadoff man had the team’s only other multi-hit performance, going 2-for-5 with two runs and an RBI. Duran would score on an RBI single off the bat of Rafael Devers to bring the Sox within a run, 4-3. Devers had three hits, which he has now done three times this year. He had two RBIs as well.

Boston had runners in scoring position in the eighth after Romy Gonzalez and David Hamilton looked to have successfully completed a double steal. Wong fouled the ball off to negate the steal attempts but then grounded into an inning-ending double play, extinguishing the threat.

Gonzalez, who is now going to platoon with Abraham Toro at first base following the season-ending knee injury to Casas, collected three hits and is now hitting .319 with an .820 OPS.

“Got lucky a few times, but he’s a good at-bat,” Cora said of Gonzalez. “He’s a good player. We’ve been talking about him for a while, and he’s going to get his opportunities.”

In the ninth, Ceddanne Rafaela led off the frame with a single off Twins closer Jhoan Duran. 

He was able to get Duran to ground out sharply and struck out Devers on a nasty 87.2 mph knuckle curve that dropped down below his knees to his back foot.

“We did (have opportunities), especially against the bullpen,” Cora said. “Their bullpen is one of the best in the big leagues, and they’ve got a lot of strikeouts, and we actually put the ball in play against them, so that’s a positive.”

With first base open, the Twins decided to walk the potential winning run in Alex Bregman to face Wilyer Abreu. The gamble paid off as Abreu (0-for-5) flew out to end it.

“(He’s) putting in good at-bats, just missing his pitches,” Cora said of Abreu. “They’re attacking him with a lot of fastballs, and he’s just under it, but just part of the course.”

Trevor Story had three more strikeouts and finished the day 1-for-4. He has struck out 16 times in his last 11 games and 50 plate appearances.

The Sox and Twins will play the rubber game on Sunday afternoon, and ace Garrett Crochet (3-2, 2.05 ERA) will get the start opposite righty Chris Paddack (0-3, 5.60 ERA). The first pitch is at 1:35 p.m. ET.