May 22, 1983: Red Sox lose to Twins despite 10 innings of stellar relief by Bob Stanley

Bob Stanley filled many roles during his career with the Boston Red Sox. He pitched 17 complete games in 64 starts between 1977 and 1981, including a 10-inning shutout in 1979. In 1982 Stanley was used exclusively as a reliever, and set an American League record for relief innings pitched (168⅓) while averaging 3½ innings per appearance.1

During spring training in 1983, Red Sox manager Ralph Houk said that if “our starter is having trouble, Stanley’s just like a fresh starter coming in there who can last four or five innings or more.”2 Stanley credited his “rubber arm”3 for his durability, and said that “I just go as hard as I can for as long as I can.”4 Still, Houk used Stanley cautiously: “I only use him when we have a chance to win, and I don’t like to use him two days in a row.”5

One of Stanley’s most impressive relief appearances took place on May 22, 1983, at Boston’s Fenway Park against the Minnesota Twins.6

Both teams had been dealing with various ailments and absences. Minnesota pitching coach Johnny Podres had been hospitalized four days earlier with pancreatitis and was heading to a rehab center to get treatment for alcoholism.7 Lenny Faedo, the Twins’ promising young shortstop, was out of the lineup for the fifth straight day with a pulled thigh muscle in his left leg.8 Ron Washington, a 31-year-old who had bounced around the minors for a decade before claiming a utilityman spot with Minnesota in 1982,9 was taking Faedo’s place in the lineup despite a .184 batting average.

Boston designated hitter Carl Yastrzemski, who planned to retire at the end of the season, had missed two weeks because of back woes that had landed him in traction and was now riding an 0-for-13 streak at the plate.10 Starting pitcher Dennis Eckersley had thrown just two innings since May 3 because of tendinitis in his shoulder,11 while left-hander John Tudor had exited his start on May 11 with back spasms.12 Tudor was still hurting six days later when he pitched into the seventh inning to earn a victory against the Kansas City Royals.13

Now, on a cloudy 70-degree Sunday afternoon, Tudor took the mound again.

Minnesota struck quickly. The Twins loaded the bases in the top of the first with two singles and a walk, and Mickey Hatcher followed with a single to left to drive in two runs. In the bottom of the inning, Boston’s Jim Rice tied the game with a two-run homer, his seventh of the season, over the screen above the left-field wall, off Minnesota starting pitcher Albert Williams. Tudor kept the Twins from scoring in the second, working around a leadoff single by Dave Engle and a walk to John Castino.

But Tudor’s first pitch of the third went behind Kent Hrbek’s back, and after Hrbek drew a walk, Houk pulled the ailing Tudor from the game.14 “Every time I sneeze I feel I’ve been stabbed,” Tudor told reporters afterward.15 “If I stayed out there, I might try to compensate in some odd way and cause further damage. That is what happened to Eck [Eckersley] recently, and he’s still hurting.”16

Houk summoned Stanley from the bullpen. His first batter, Gary Gaetti, extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a single to right, but Red Sox right fielder Dwight Evans threw out Hrbek at third base. Gaetti, who took second on the throw, was stranded there as Hatcher grounded out to third and Rice made a leaping catch of a line drive by Tom Brunansky.17 The game remained tied at 2-2 until Rice led off the fifth with another home run, an even more towering blast in the same direction as his earlier shot.

Boston’s lead was short-lived. Brunansky hammered Stanley’s first pitch of the sixth – a high fastball, which Stanley later claimed was his “only mistake”18 of the game – into the left-field screen for a game-tying home run.19

Over the next six innings, no runs were scored, and neither team was able to advance a runner past second base. Twins manager Billy Gardner replaced Williams with Rick Lysander for the seventh inning, followed by Len Whitehouse and Ron Davis.

Meanwhile, Stanley continued pitching for Boston. Minnesota put runners on base in every inning from the seventh through the 11th, but double plays in the eighth and 11th helped to dismiss potential threats.

Stanley ended his day by retiring the Twins in order in the 12th. He had pitched 10 innings, scattering 10 hits while throwing 109 pitches. “I felt good on the mound,” Stanley said. “[After] I pitched nine innings, and when Ralph [Houk] asked me if I’d had enough, I told him I could go one more.”20

In the bottom of the 12th, the Red Sox had their best chance to win the game, as Tony Armas and Wade Boggs hit back-to-back singles to left with two out. Yastrzemski then struck out to end the inning as boos rained down from the crowd; he had gone 0-for-6 and had been unable to get a ball out of the infield while stranding seven baserunners.

Luis Aponte replaced Stanley for the top of the 13th. The first batter was Ron Washington, who had faced Aponte several times during winter ball in Venezuela. Aponte liked to use his slider against Washington, but his first attempt this afternoon was, in Aponte’s words, “a weak one that hung” over the plate, and the Twins shortstop drove it into the left-field screen to give Minnesota a 4-3 lead.21

Washington raced around the bases as his teammates cheered on the man they had nicknamed Sweetwater.22 “It’s not my forte to hit homers, but I’m happy to get this one,” Washington said after hitting his first home run of the season. “It was a great feeling, one of the big thrills of my career.”23

Aponte finished the inning, then Davis retired the Red Sox in order to preserve Minnesota’s 4-3 victory. After the game, Davis praised Stanley’s performance: “I’d gladly take a hundred losses to do what Stanley did out there today.”24 When Gardner was asked about the effectiveness of Stanley’s palmball, which some people thought behaved like an illegal spitball, the Twins’ manager smiled and said, “I guess you have to hit it on the dry side.”25

Stanley went on to set a Red Sox record with 33 saves for the season, a record that was destined to be broken many times.26 His appearance on May 22 proved more historically significant. Long relief outings were less unusual earlier in the twentieth century. During the 1930s there were 21 relief appearances of 10 or more innings; by the 1970s, there were only four. Stanley’s 10-inning performance was the first since one by Dick Tidrow of the New York Yankees on August 25, 1976, and as of the end of the 2023 season, no one had done it since.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Madison McEntire and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Bob Stanley, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS198305220.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1983/B05220BOS1983.htm

Notes

1 Stanley broke the mark set by Bill Campbell of the Minnesota Twins in 1976 (167⅔) and still held the record as of the end of the 2023 season. Mike Marshall of the Los Angeles Dodgers set the major-league record of 208⅓ relief innings pitched in 1974.

2 Chuck Mulling, “Beefy Stanley Can Pound Opponents,” Tampa Tribune, February 28, 1983: 34.

3 Mike Sowell, One Pitch Away: The Players’ Stories of the 1986 League Championships and World Series (New York: Macmillan, 1995), 287.

4 Jim Kaplan, “The Red Sox’ Bob Stanley Is a Long Reliever Who Doesn’t Get Short Shrift,” Sports Illustrated, April 25, 1983.

5 Kaplan.

6 Exactly one year earlier, on May 22, 1982, Stanley had another lengthy relief outing when he replaced Bob Ojeda with two out in the first inning, and pitched 8⅓ innings to earn a victory over the Oakland Athletics.

7 Podres returned to the Twins in early July. “Podres Hospitalized with Pancreas Disorder,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 20, 1983: 60; “Not the World. Just the Twins,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 25, 1983: 45; Murray Chass, “For Podres, Sobriety Is Life,” New York Times, July 20, 1983: B11.

8 Doug Grow, “Washington Homer Trips Boston 4-3,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 23, 1983: 1D.

9 Washington began his professional career in 1971 with the Kansas City Royals organization. He made his major-league debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers in September 1977, appearing in 10 games, but did not return to the majors until he was called up by the Twins in September 1981.

10 Peter Gammons, “Yaz Heads Home into Traction,” Boston Globe, April 28, 1983: 47.

11 Eckersley started on May 13 and pitched two innings against the Milwaukee Brewers before the game was rained out. Peter Gammons, “Sox Washed Away,” Boston Globe, May 14, 1983: 25.

12 Larry Whiteside, “Angels Stifle Red Sox, 3-1,” Boston Globe, May 12, 1983: 45.

13 Larry Whiteside, “Sox Trip KC, 4-1,” Boston Globe, May 18, 1983: 61.

14 Red Hoffman, “Twins Stuff Red Sox,” Lynn (Massachusetts) Daily Evening Item, May 23, 1983: 14 mentions the first pitch to Hrbek but also states that Tudor was lifted immediately. Most sources state that Tudor completed the walk to Hrbek before Stanley entered the game, which makes sense given that Tudor, not Stanley, was charged with the walk.

15 Gerry Finn, “Sox Suffer Depressing Day,” Springfield (Massachusetts) Daily News, May 23, 1983: 23.

16 Larry Whiteside, “Red Sox Unlucky in 13th, 4-3,” Boston Globe, May 23, 1983: 29. Tudor recovered quickly and pitched a complete-game one-hit shutout at Toronto on May 27.

17 Joe Giuliotti, “Extra innings jinx Red Sox,” Boston Herald, May 23, 1983: 46.

18 Whiteside, “Red Sox Unlucky in 13th, 4-3.”

19 Grow, “Washington Homer Trips Boston 4-3.”

20 Whiteside, “Red Sox unlucky in 13th, 4-3.”

21 Joe Giuliotti, “Twins frustrate Sox,” Boston Herald, May 23, 1983: 48.

22 Grow, “Washington homer trips Boston 4-3.”

23 “Washington HR Lifts Twins,” Nashua (New Hampshire) Telegraph, May 23, 1983: 21. Washington finished his 10-year career in the majors with 20 home runs in 1,586 at-bats.

24 Michael Madden, “Leave No Stone Unturned in Search of Sacrifice Bunt,” Boston Globe, May 23, 1983: 29.

25 Red Hoffman, “Twins Stuff Red Sox.” Stanley insisted that his palmball was legal; see Kaplan, “The Red Sox’ Bob Stanley Is a Long Reliever Who Doesn’t Get Short Shrift.”

26 As of the end of the 2023 season, Stanley’s 33 saves were tied for the 12th-most in a Red Sox season.