September 2, 1996: Mike Greenwell drives in all 9 Red Sox runs to beat Seattle in 10 innings

A two-time All-Star, Silver Slugger Award winner, and the 1988 American League MVP runner-up, Mike Greenwell spent his entire 12-season major-league career with the Boston Red Sox. He was the Red Sox’ starting left fielder for 10 years, from 1987 through 1996. Injuries limited Greenwell considerably in 1996, his final big-league season, but he did enjoy the most outstanding game of his career in the last month of that season.

During a 6:05 P.M. game on Labor Day, September 2, before 24,470 in Seattle’s Kingdome, Greenwell drove in all nine of Boston’s runs, including the one that made the difference in the top of the 10th. The Red Sox needed every one of Greenwell’s RBIs for a 9-8 win over the Seattle Mariners.

“No one in baseball worked harder on Labor Day than Mike Greenwell,” wrote the Associated Press.1 “Greenwell 9, Seattle 8” read the game-end graphic on the screen of Seattle’s Channel 4 KOMO Sports.2

“It was a week’s work,” said Mariners manager Lou Piniella. “Two weeks’ work.”3

For the 33-year-old Greenwell, 1996 had been a tough year. A fractured finger sidelined him from April 28 to July 19. He’d been batting just .222 with 8 RBIs when he went on the 60-day disabled list. Other maladies of 1996 included a sore back and a bruised right foot.

The Red Sox, managed by Kevin Kennedy, had finished first in the AL East in 1995, but the ’96 club was 17 games out of first on August 1. They went 22-9 in August, however, and were just 6½ games behind the first-place New York Yankees coming into the September 2 game. (The Red Sox wound up in third place, seven games back.)

Through September 1, the Mariners—who in 1995 had rallied in the season’s final six weeks to reach the postseason for the first time in franchise history—were in second place, six games behind the first-place Texas Rangers. They finished the season in second, 4½ games behind Texas.

Bob Wolcott started for the Mariners, a right-hander in his sophomore season. He’d been 3-2 (4.42 ERA) in 1995 and was 7-10 (5.65) coming into this game.4 He kept the Red Sox scoreless through the first four innings, allowing just a leadoff single in the first inning and a base on balls in the second. Greenwell, batting eighth, flied out to begin the Boston third.

The Mariners faced Roger Clemens, who, despite three Cy Young Awards and being named to five All-Star squads, had been having a rough season in 1996. He was 4-11 (4.36) through August 1, but then won his next four decisions, giving up only one earned run over 33 innings. In this game, two one-out singles followed by an Álex Rodríguez sacrifice fly gave Seattle a 1-0 lead in the third.

Clemens dug a deep hole for himself in the fourth. Ken Griffey Jr. singled up the middle to lead off. With a groundout and a walk, there were runners on first and second. Paul Sorrento singled to right, driving in Griffey while the runner on first took third base. Mark Whiten grounded a ball to Clemens’ right; Clemens threw wildly to the left of second base and another run scored.

Then catcher Dan Wilson hit a grounder to Clemens’ left, and Clemens, again trying for the force at second, made another throwing error. Another run scored—Seattle’s fourth—and Whiten went first to third. The Boston Globe described Clemens’ second error of the inning as a “soft-serve into shallow center field.”5

Third baseman Dave Hollins hit a sacrifice fly to center and Whiten tagged and scored. With four runs on two hits, the Mariners held a 5-0 lead.

In the top of the fifth, Red Sox third baseman Tim Naehring worked a two-out walk. Greenwell swung at Wolcott’s first pitch and homered several rows up into the seats in right field, his sixth home run of the season.

The score remained 5-2 until the seventh, with Clemens still pitching. Right-hander Bobby Ayala had relieved Wolcott to secure the final out in the top of the sixth.

Red Sox DH Reggie Jefferson doubled to center to lead off the top of the seventh. Over the next 13 pitches, Troy O’Leary walked and so did Naehring. With the bases loaded, and nobody out, Greenwell swung at Ayala’s second pitch and pulled a grand slam into the second tier of seats in right. Boston took a 6-5 lead on the third grand slam of Greenwell’s career. Ayala, and then Rusty Meacham, closed out the inning.

In the bottom of the seventh, Seattle reclaimed the lead. Reggie Harris took over from Clemens. With one out, second baseman Joey Cora doubled off the wall in right. The Mariners’ 21-year-old shortstop Álex Rodríguez hit his 35th home run of the season to left field,6 making it a 7-6 game.

Harris then walked Ken Griffey Jr., and manager Kevin Kennedy called in Kerry Lacy from the bullpen. Lacy faced two batters and walked them both, loading the bases. Vaughn Eshelman was brought in to replace Lacy. He walked pinch-hitter Brian Hunter, forcing in a run for an 8-6 Seattle lead. On his next pitch, though, he got Whiten to hit into an inning-ending double play.

Veteran lefty Norm Charlton relieved Meacham in the eighth. More walks followed. (By game’s end, 10 Red Sox had drawn bases on balls, as had eight Mariners.) Mo Vaughn and Naehring walked, with two outs in between. Greenwell was up again, and this time he doubled down the left-field line, scoring both baserunners. He had 8 RBIs and the game was tied.7

Mark Brandenburg and Heathcliff Slocumb both pitched in to hold Seattle scoreless in the bottom of the eighth, despite each walking one. For Slocumb, it was his 64th appearance of the season. In August he had earned nine saves in 10 chances and was named American League Rolaids Relief Man for the month.8

Seattle’s fifth pitcher, Michael Jackson, set down the Red Sox in order in the ninth. Slocumb walked leadoff batter Edgar Martinez and gave up a one-out single to pinch-hitter Doug Strange, but got Whiten to hit into another double play.

Seattle’s Rafael Carmona pitched the top of the 10th. Vaughn flied out. Wil Cordero walked. After a lineout and another walk, Mike Greenwell came to the plate once more, with two out and two on. He’d already driven in every one of Boston’s eight runs. On a 2-and-0 count, he slapped a single past the third baseman and down the left-field line, driving in Cordero and giving the Red Sox a 9-8 lead.

Slocumb gave up back-to-back one-out singles to Dave Hollins and Joey Cora, but Álex Rodríguez hit a ball back to Slocumb, who started a 1-4-3 game-ending double play.

The Red Sox had overcome a five-run deficit and won, 9-8, in 10 innings, and the “Greenwell 9, Seattle 8” graphic was apt. Mike Greenwell had driven in every one of Boston’s runs. The Red Sox had only seven base hits in the game, and Greenwell had four of them.

The winning pitcher was, of course, Slocumb, who had closed a league-leading 54 games for the Phillies the year before. His season record improved to 3-5 (3.59 ERA). But one could well argue that it was Mike Greenwell who won the game.

The nine RBIs in one game was a career high for Greenwell. Four Red Sox players have driven in more runs in a single game, but in no case did their RBIs constitute all the runs of the game in question.9

The AL record for the most runs driven in by one player in a single game is 11 RBIs, by Tony Lazzeri of the Yankees, during a 25-2 win over the Philadelphia Athletics on May 24, 1936. Two players share the National League record of 12 RBIs in one game, and both were St. Louis Cardinals at the time: Jim Bottomley (September 16, 1924 in Brooklyn, a 17-3 win) and Whiten (September 7, 1993, in the second game of a doubleheader in Cincinnati, a 15-2 victory).10

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote, noting previous instances of a player driving in all of this team’s runs in a game: “(Greenwell) broke the record of eight RBIs shared by George Kelly of the New York Giants (1924) and Bob Johnson of the Philadelphia Athletics (1938).”11

Greenwell ended the season (his last) with 44 RBIs and a .295 batting average. His previous high for RBIs in a single game was six.12 

The Sox left fielder sounded relaxed after the game, simply saying, “I’m comfortable, relaxed, I’m seeing the ball well. I’ve got it going for me.”13

Manager Kennedy said it hadn’t looked like a win was in the cards. “What a night. Nine RBIs. I’ve never seen that in Little League, let alone up here in the big leagues. For a guy who’s gone through a lot this year, I’m really happy for him.”14

Acknowledgments 

This game was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

Game highlights, including all nine of Greenwell’s RBIs and Clemens’ two errors, can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWGCQcfBlAQ.

Thanks to Lyle Spatz for supplying information regarding RBI records. Thanks to Tim Herlich for providing access to Seattle newspapers.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SEA/SEA199609020.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1996/B09020SEA1996.htm

Notes

1 Tom Withers (Associated Press), “Mariners Lose,” Daily Sitka (Alaska) Sentinel, September 3, 1996: 6.

2 Game Highlights (KOMO-TV), “Boston Red Sox vs. Seattle Mariners (9-2-1996) ‘Mike Greenwell And His 9 RBI Night in the Kingdome,’” YouTube video (Sports Odyssey), 1:37, accessed October 13, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWGCQcfBlAQ.

3 Withers.   

4 Wolcott was 15-18 (5.66) for the Mariners through 1997, then pitched briefly for the Diamondbacks in 1997 and even more briefly with the Red Sox in 1998.

5 Michael Vega, “Greenwell Goes Wild,” Boston Globe, September 3, 1996: C5.

6 Rodríguez was reportedly the “third-youngest player in major-league history to hit 35 homers. Only Mel Ott (20 years, 189 days in 1929) and Frank Robinson (on his 21st birthday in 1956) were younger.” Bob Sherwin, “Greenwell Monster—Red Sox Slugger’s 9 RBI Set Record as M’s Lose in 10,” Seattle Times, September 3, 1996: C1. Sherwin added, “Rodriguez has 86 extra-base hits, one short of Robin Yount’s big-league record for a shortstop.” Rodríguez ended the season with a majors-leading 54 doubles, along with one triple and 36 home runs.

7 Lee Tinsley scored the tying run as a pinch-runner for Naehring.

8 Vega, “Greenwell Goes Wild.” Less than a year after this game, on July 31, 1997, the Red Sox traded Slocumb to the Mariners for Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe.

9 The four were Rudy York (July 27, 1946), Norm Zauchin (May 27, 1955), Fred Lynn (June 18, 1975), and Nomar Garciaparra (May 10, 1999).

10 The Reds had won the first game, 14-13, with two runs in the bottom of the ninth. Whiten had been 0-for-4 in the first game.

11 Jim Street, “Greenwell Wrecks M’s—Sets Record Driving In All Nine Boston Runs,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 3, 1996: C1. Kelly drove in all eight runs on June 14, 1924, against the visiting Cincinnati Reds, capped by his walk-off two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth that won the game, 8-6. In the first game of a June 12, 1938, doubleheader, Johnson hit a grand slam in the first inning, in a game that saw his Athletics beat the St. Louis Browns, 8-3. His three-run homer in the seventh helped boost the lead.

12 The six-RBI game was against Texas on April 17, 1988, at Fenway Park, a 12-2 Red Sox win. Five times in 1987, he had four-RBI games.

13 Sherwin.

14 Michael Vega, “Greenwell Is on Cloud Nine after Dream Night,” Boston Globe, September 4, 1996: D3.