Red Sox 2, Twins 1: Dustin Pedroia recorded two hits and an RBI while Jon Lester outdueled Phil Hughes as host Boston clinched its first series win this month.

Brock Holt went 2-for-4 and scored twice while Xander Bogaerts drove in a run for the Red Sox, who have scored a total of three runs in winning the first two contests of the three-game set. Lester (8-7) allowed one run and four hits with six strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings to improve to 2-4 lifetime against Minnesota.

Danny Santana registered half of his team's four hits and Joe Mauer plated the lone run for the Twins, who fell to 3-5 on their nine-game road trip with their fourth consecutive loss. Hughes (7-3) recorded his third career complete game in a losing effort, falling for the second time in three starts despite yielding only two runs and eight hits over eight frames.

Boston took an early lead as Holt led off the first inning with a single, moved to second on a groundout and scored on Pedroia's double. Holt helped make it 2-0 in the third, hitting a leadoff double and stealing third before coming home on Bogaerts' sacrifice fly.

The Twins halved the deficit in the sixth, when Santana began the frame with a double and was sacrificed to third before trotting home on a double by Mauer. But they were unable to break through against Boston's bullpen as Burke Badenhop, Craig Breslow and Junichi Tazawa combined for 1 2/3 hitless innings before Edward Mujica struck out two in a perfect ninth for his second save.

GAME NOTEBOOK: The Red Sox lost their first three series of June before splitting a four-game set with Cleveland prior to this matchup. ... Twins INF Eduardo Nunez missed his third straight game with a strained right hamstring. ... The Grady Sizemore experiment is over for Boston, which designated the veteran outfielder for assignment prior to the game. Sizemore, who had several outstanding seasons with Cleveland before being derailed by injuries, batted .216 with two home runs and 15 RBIs in 52 games this year - his first in the majors since 2011.