Daniel Bard made his final start of the spring on Friday against the Minnesota Twins allowing 3 runs in 6 innings. The first inning was shaky for him as he allowed a double off the bat of Justin Morneau that drove in Joe Mauer for the first run of the game but after that Bard was impressive until the sixth.
Earlier this month Bobby Valentine made comments to the media about Daniel Bard not using his change up enough. Well the fireballer showed today that his change can be effective. In the fifth inning after striking out Luke Hughes on a nasty 96 mph heater, he baffled Michael Hollimon with a changeup to end the inning.
The only flaw in the outing was another 3 walks but 2 of those came in the sixth inning when he was clearly running out of gas. Other than that, he made a strong case for the final spot in the rotation.
Bard’s Final Line:6IP,4H,3ER,3BB,7K
Cody Ross continued to hit the cover off the ball with a pair of 2 run homers in the game, one coming in the second and the other in the sixth. His batting average sits at .366 for the spring with 6 homers.
The Red Sox’ relievers came quite close to blowing the game in the late innings but Mark Melancon was able to get out of the ninth with the lead intact.
Matt Albers started out with a decent seventh inning but the eighth wasn’t pretty. Albers gave up 3 hits and a 2 run homer before handing the ball to Mark Melancon with the bases loaded. Melancon was able to get Angel Morales to groundout to end the inning.
The Red Sox’ presumed setup man came back on for the ninth and was touched up for a couple runs but he managed to get out of the inning and secure a win for the Sox.