The Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins played to a 4-4 tie in 10 innings on Wednesday night at City of Palms Park in Ft. Myers. The reason the game ended in a tie was due to the fact that the Red Sox ran out of pitchers.

The Twins had a chance to win the game in the top of the 9th but Sox outfielder Alex Ochoa threw out Luis Rodriguez with a laser throw to home plate. Surprising to see someone throw someone out at the plate this early in spring training, but when your MLB life hangs in the balance with each play, you do what you gotta do.

Curt Schilling was in mid-season form in the game. He threw 15 of his 19 pitches for strikes. 18 of his pitches were fastballs and 1 was a slider. He did give up 2 hits. Schilling spoke with the media during the game and had this to say:

“I was nervous and short of breath and all the things I normally am whether I’m facing [Northeastern] or the Yankees tonight,” Schilling said. “That first time out, that anxiety is the thing that … you just can’t replicate that when you’re competing. It’s amazing that it’s already back and starting again.

I expect to be the ace of the staff. I know there’s a lot of people that are assuming I’m going to get the ball Opening Day because it’s the respectful thing to do. I don’t want that to be the case. I expect to be the ace of the staff. I expect to have some of these guys have phenomenal years and I’ll barely outpitch them and we’ll win a World Series. That’s what I’ll expect.”

Schilling will be back on the mound on Sunday when the Red Sox face the Twins again in the Mayor’s Cup.

Joel Piñero gave up the first run in the game in the 3rd inning but it wasn’t his fault. The main concern that the Red Sox had was Julio Lugo’s defense. Well he didn’t disappoint when he made an error on a routine throw to first base. That’s what led to the first run.

The Red Sox got the lead up to 4-1 with two runs in each of the 3rd and 4th innings. Lugo atoned for his error by driving in a run and Big Papi beat the shift to drive in another. Jacoby Ellsbury added a double to knock in two runs in the 4th.

The Twins tied it up in the 5th on a Joe Mauer opposite field 3 run homer off of Julian Tavarez to finish off the scoring in the game.

Other news from Red Sox camp on Wednesday.

Jon Lester will return to the hill on Monday when he faces the Twins minor leaguers in a “B” game. He will only throw one inning. This is great news as he works towards returning to his pre-cancer form. Lester will then throw in the bullpen a few days later, then throw a simulated game. He is currently slated to start the minor league opener on March 26th.

Terry Francona said there’s no timetable as to when Manny Ramirez will make his spring debut. He wants him to get his baseball legs underneath him before letting Manny take the field.

Mike Timlin still hasn’t received clearance to retake the mound but continues to go through his normal spring training routine.

J.D Drew and Coco Crisp will make their debuts against Northeastern on Thursday. Josh Beckett is slated to pitch 2 innings in the game as well.

First spring training game out of the way. It was nice to see Schilling look like his normal self. The one thing that I noticed during the game was there wasn’t a lot of breaking balls thrown. The only pitchers who really threw any breaking stuff were the ones who participated in winter ball. Ellsbury was impressive in stealing 2nd base. He was actually in the process of getting picked off but beat the throw the second base after Twins 1B Ken Harvey dropped the throw from the pitcher. The Mayor’s Cup now stands at 0-0-1 for both the Sox and the Twinkees.

If you would like to see some pictures of the game, continue reading. These are snapshots from the game on NESN.

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