BOSTON — Twins rookie lefty Adalberto Mejia is feeling more comfortable each time he takes the mound.

Mejia pitched 52/3 innings in his second straight scoreless start, Max Kepler hit a two-run homer and Minnesota rebounded from two consecutive losses against Boston to beat the Red Sox 4-1 on Wednesday night.

“He did a nice job,” Twins Manager Paul Molitor said about Mejia. “He had to kind of battle. It’s kind of becoming a little bit of his MO to burn through pitches, but similarly to his last start, he kept walking off the field with zeros.”

Kepler also had an RBI single, and Miguel Sano added an RBI double to help the Twins improve to 24-11 on the road.

Mejia (3-3) allowed five hits, struck out three and walked one in his 11th career start. On Friday night at Cleveland, he held the Indians to two hits over five innings in a victory.

“I feel calmer every time I’m out there,” he said through a translator. “I think that’s why I did better.”

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Brandon Kintzler got the final three outs for his 21st save.

Boston starter Rick Porcello (4-10) gave up four runs on six hits in six innings, striking out six and walking two. It was his 14th straight start going at least six innings, the AL’s longest active streak.

“It’s not like they’re beating the cover off the ball,” Porcello said. “It’s just a couple things here and there that I’ve got to clean up. I’m not making excuses for myself. I definitely hold myself accountable for the loss tonight.”

Red Sox Manager John Farrell was back in the dugout after serving a one-game suspension Tuesday for poking umpire Bill Miller in the chest during an argument Saturday.

The Red Sox stranded 11 baserunners, and at least one in every inning. Farrell thought his team may have been pressing a bit.

“I thought there were times we might have expanded the strike zone a little bit, trying to make something happen,” he said.

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With Minnesota leading 2-0 in the sixth, Kepler lined his homer off the back of Boston’s bullpen.

In the first, the Twins scored a pair of two-out runs when Sano hit his RBI double down the third-base line and scored on Kepler’s broken-bat single.

Xander Bogaerts drove in Boston’s run with a bases-loaded grounder in the seventh.

NOTES: DH Hanley Ramirez missed his third straight game after getting hit by a pitch on the left knee Sunday. “He’ll go through a full workday today,” Farrell said. “He’s feeling improved.” … Red Sox 2B Dustin Pedroia played his 98th consecutive error-less game, matching the best mark in club history he set for a second baseman from 2009-10.


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