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FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) -- Kyle Lohse tossed five shutout innings to help the Minnesota Twins beat the Boston Red Sox 4-3 on Thursday.

Lohse, who had an up-and-down 2005 season with Minnesota, allowed four hits, struck out two and didn't walk a batter. The right-hander lowered his ERA to 2.12 in his fifth spring start.

"It's a good start, so far," said Lohse, who improved to 3-0. "A lot of times, I get into trouble by being overaggressive. There's a fine line between being overaggressive and not being aggressive enough.

"I'm going after the hitters, but I'm not looking to blow any of them away."

Lohse faced many of Boston's top hitters, including David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Jason Varitek.

"Those guys are pretty good hitters," Lohse said. "It's good to have that kind of competition at this time of year."

After compiling winning records in 2002 and 2003, Lohse finished with a 9-13 record in each of the last two seasons. But he lowered his walks from 76 to 44 last season, and he lowered his ERA from 5.34 to 4.18, a career best.

"It was good to see Kyle Lohse throw the ball good," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "He located it. He didn't try to overdo it."

Justin Morneau had an RBI single and Shawn Wooten added a solo home run to help the Twins build a 3-0 lead after five innings. Luis Rodriguez drove in a run with a base hit in the eighth inning to make it 4-2 Minnesota.

"Offensively, we didn't do too much," Gardenhire said. "But we scored the runs when we had to."

Mark Loretta hit a two-run home run for Boston.