Dodgers 7, Red Sox 5, 10 innings

FORT MYERS, Fla. --The Red Sox signed Alex Gonzalez to steal hits with his glove. He did that Monday and also produced a run with his bat.

The shortstop made two sensational fielding plays and hit his first homer of spring training, but once he left after seven innings, the Los Angeles Dodgers won 7-5 on Willy Aybar's two-run homer in the 10th.

"He plays the position as good as anyone," said Boston third baseman Mike Lowell, who spent the previous seven seasons with Gonzalez in Florida.

The first fielding gem came when Aybar led off the game with a grounder into the shortstop hole. Gonzalez cut it off and fired on one hop for the out. Then, with one out in the third, Gonzalez dove to his left, fielded Ramon Martinez's grounder and, still on the ground, fired another easy-to-handlle, one-hop throw to first baseman J.T. Snow.

That helped Matt Clement pitch four shutout innings in which he allowed two hits and no walks and struck out four. Last season, Boston shortstop Edgar Renteria led the majors with 30 errors.

"The two plays Alex made is kind of what we talked about during the winter as how we wanted to be better defensively, how it would lead into us having better pitching," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "I though that was a perfect example.

"Clement comes out with a really stellar outing," Francona added, "and Alex is directly responsible for eliminating the start of two innings. Those were two tremendous plays."

Los Angeles manager Grady Little, let go by Boston after the 2003 season and replaced by Francona, said returning to his former spring training home was "no more special than any of the other games that we play in spring training, but I get to see a lot of friends that I haven't seen in a long time."

But he didn't take any regular starters with him on the long 158-mile bus trip from Vero Beach.

Aybar batted leadoff and was one of two Dodgers to play the whole game. His first exhibition homer came off loser Jimmy Serrano and followed a walk to Jimmy Rohan. Aybar played in his 12th of the Dodgers' 13 games and entered it with just three hits in 25 at bats and no RBIs. He went 2-for-5 with two runs Monday.

Boston had tied the game 5-5 in the ninth on Ron Calloway's two-run homer off winner Brian Meadows. Boston also got a two-run homer from Kevin Youkilis that made it 3-3 in the sixth.

After his second outstanding play, Gonzalez led off the third against reliever Takashi Saito with his first exhibition homer. He hit only five homers last year after getting 18 in 2003 and 23 in 2004.

He usually hit eighth in the National League where pitchers could work around him with his own pitcher coming up next. With Boston, he'll likely bat ninth, before leadoff hitter Coco Crisp.

"I think he's going to see better pitches in the American League," Lowell said.

His teammates should see more stellar plays at shortstop.

"The second play, I don't know how he did it," Francona said. "Lowell was in there laughing. He said, `you're going to see it all year.' I hope so."