Red Sox win GCL championship

The Red Sox captured the Gulf Coast League championship on Friday with an 11-2 thumping of the Dodgers as Jorge Rodriguez took a no-hitter into the sixth inning and Pedro Vasquez hit a grand slam.

Rodriguez earned the win in the decisive third game of the finals, allowing a run on one hit over six frames. His bid for a no-hitter was foiled in the sixth, when Trayvon Robinson led off with a double and scored on Francisco Lizarraga's groundout.

The 21-year-old right-hander had no margin for error for three innings. In the fourth, Michael Jones launched a solo homer to put the Red Sox ahead for good. The dinger was the highlight of a stellar day for Jones, who went 5-for-5.

"All I was doing up there today was looking for good pitches," said Jones. "The rest took care of itself."

Jones won't have much time to celebrate the championship. He and several teammates earned promotions to the Lowell Spinners of the short-season New York-Penn League. On Saturday, the Spinners will take on the Oneonta Tigers at Fenway Park in Boston.

"This is a really big jump," said Jones, a 25th-round pick in the 2004 draft. "My first game with the Spinners is going to be in front of 40,000 people. My entire professional career has been in the GCL, where there aren't many fans, so I'm really looking forward to it."

Buoyed by Jones' dinger, the Red Sox scored seven runs in the fifth. The big blow was Vasquez's grand slam.

"We were winning, 3-0, when I came up to the plate," Vazquez said through an interpreter. "The count went to 1-2, and on the next pitch I was able to put a good swing on the ball. Everybody on the field knew it was out as soon as I hit it, and it broke the game wide open."

Jovanny Rosario tripled and scored the Dodgers' other run in the eighth, but that was all the East Division champs could muster.

Wayne Renfrow took the loss, allowing seven runs -- four earned -- on six hits and three walks over 4 2/3 innings. Eduardo Quintana relieved him with runners on first and second and two outs in the fifth and promptly walked Carlos Fernandez-Oliva to load the bases. Ryan Kalish reached on first baseman A.J. Anthony's error, setting the stage for Vasquez's blast.