October 20, 2007: J.D. Drew’s grand slam helps Red Sox send ALCS to Game 7

Some Boston Red Sox fans were allowing themselves to harbor hope. The team had been down three games to one to the Cleveland Indians in the 2007 American League Championship Series, but they won Game Five to bring the series back to Boston. The 86-year-old “curse” had been snapped in 2004; the Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918. Was it hoping for too much to get into another World Series just three years later?

Curt Schilling was pitching for the Red Sox in Game Six. He’d started Game Two but had been driven from the mound, giving up five runs in just under five innings. But the 40-year-old right-hander had a track record. He was 9-2 (2.23) in postseason play and had never been beaten in a game in which his team could be eliminated; in those games, he was 3-0 with an ERA of 1.11. One of his two postseason losses was Game One of the 2004 ALCS, when he gave up six runs in three innings to the New York Yankees. After a special surgical procedure, Schilling was back in Game Six – a potential elimination game – and held the Yankees to one run in seven innings, his famous “Bloody Sock Game.”1

Starting for Cleveland was Roberto Hernández, then known as Fausto Carmona.2 He had proved mortal as well, giving up four runs in four innings in Game Two after going 19-8 (3.06) in the regular season, tied with CC Sabathia for the most wins with the Indians.

Being down three games to two in a postseason series was not a novelty for the Red Sox. If nothing else, they could draw some hope from the fact that the last five times they’d been in the situation they had won Game Six, going back to the 1967 World Series.

The Red Sox wasted no time in taking control of this Game Six. Schilling faced three batters in the first and didn’t allow a ball out of the infield, other than one foul ball very near the Pesky Pole in right. With 11 pitches, he induced two groundouts and struck out Travis Hafner.

In the bottom of the first, the first three Red Sox batters loaded the bases with nobody out on an infield single, another infield single, and a walk to David Ortiz. That brought up Manny Ramírez, who had already enjoyed a productive postseason and was batting .440. At this point in his career, he had 20 regular-season grand slams.3

This time, however, Ramírez struck out. It had taken Hernández 22 pitches to get the first out. Boston’s regular-season RBI leader, Mike Lowell, hit a fly to right field, too shallow to serve as a sacrifice fly. There were two outs.

Sixth-place hitter J.D. Drew was batting .259 without an RBI in the postseason. The 31-year-old left-handed-batting right fielder had signed with the Red Sox as a free agent during the 2006-07 offseason after nine years in the National League. The count ran to 3-and-1. It seemed like an early-game turning point, one way or another.

Drew swung, and he hit a grand slam, the ball having, as the Boston Globe reported, “just enough juice to clear the wall and land in the little hut with the TV cameras” in the straightaway center-field bleachers.4 Drew had “gone from pillory to pedestal with a single swing.”5 The Red Sox had a 4-0 lead.

The Indians did score in the second, on a leadoff home run by Victor Martínez, this one over the Pesky Pole on the right-field foul line, but fair.6 Schilling got outs from the next three.   

The Red Sox got a one-out double and then a single, but a double play ended their half of the second.

The Indians stirred in the top of the third when Trot Nixon singled to right and Casey Blake followed with a single to left. Both Grady Sizemore and Asdrúbal Cabrera hit the ball solidly but for outs. Schilling then got Hafner to ground out to first base unassisted.

In their third inning, the Red Sox put the game out of reach. Hernández walked Ramírez and Lowell, then gave up a run-producing single to Drew, right past Hernández and into center for Drew’s fifth RBI of the still-young game.7

Cleveland manager Eric Wedge called Rafael Pérez in from the bullpen.8 Jason Varitek flied out to center; Lowell tagged and took third. Rookie center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury – in his first postseason start – singled over short and Lowell scored. Julio Lugo doubled between third base and a diving Blake and into the left-field corner, and both Drew and Ellsbury scored for an 8-1 lead.

Dustin Pedroia walked. Kevin Youkilis singled off the wall in left and two more runs scored.9 The second of the runs scored after the throw came in from Kenny Lofton to Cabrera at second. Youkilis was caught between first and second and was chased back toward first. Cabrera’s throw bounced off Youkilis’s batting helmet, allowing Pedroia to score. It was 10-1, Red Sox.

Wedge turned to the bullpen again and brought in Aaron Laffey, a rookie who had appeared in only nine games since being called up in August. The 22-year-old lefty was 4-2 with a 4.56 ERA. This was his first postseason appearance, and he put up the best numbers of the day, working 4⅔ innings and allowing Boston just one hit. Despite a fielding error behind him and a walk to Ramírez, Laffey got out of the inning without any more damage being done. Ramírez became the first player to walk twice in a single LCS inning.

In the fourth, Laffey retired the Red Sox on three fly balls. In the fifth, he retired them on three groundouts.

Schilling allowed leadoff singles to Martínez in the fourth and Nixon in the fifth. Nothing came of either. In the sixth, Cabrera popped up to Pedroia at second and Schilling struck out both Hafner and Martínez.

It was in the bottom of the sixth that the Sox got their hit off Laffey – a two-out single by Lowell – but Ortiz had struck out, Ramírez had grounded out, and then Drew struck out.

The Indians scored in the top of the seventh. Ryan Garko led off with a triple off the wall in left-center, the carom getting away from Ellsbury. Jhonny Peralta hit a sacrifice fly to right, making it 10-2. Schilling got outs from the next two.

Laffey set down the Red Sox in order in the bottom of the seventh. His work had spared the Indians bullpen and left them better rested for Game Seven.

Schilling’s start had also spared the Red Sox bullpen from overuse. For the eighth inning, manager Terry Francona called in Javier López, who threw eight pitches and got three outs.

The Red Sox faced 36-year-old righty Joe Borowski in the bottom of the eighth. He’d pitched in Games One, Two, and Three of the ALCS and had not surrendered a run. Youkilis walked with one out. Ortiz doubled to left. Ramírez hit a sacrifice fly, driving in Youkilis and allowing pinch-runner Eric Hinske to take third base. Lowell singled to center, Hinske scoring. It was 12-2, Red Sox. Drew singled. Varitek walked, loading the bases. Ellsbury lined out to short for the third out.

Eric Gagne relieved López. He’d suffered the loss in Game One, so it was good to have a chance to get some work. He faced three batters and got all three out. 

The Red Sox had come all the way back and evened up the ALCS at three wins apiece.

“Momentum in the playoffs is the next day’s pitcher,” wrote the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Bud Shaw. He was not feeling good about prospects for Cleveland: “It’s fair to wonder about the Indians’ frame of mind waking up in this crazed city after losing a 3-1 series lead, after watching their No. 1 and No. 2 starters abdicate the roles so completely, after throwing the ball around the infield like a Little League team bone tired from a sleepover the previous night. It’s fair to wonder when Travis Hafner (0-for-15) can barely hit the ball out of the infield.”10

Wedge was not as pessimistic. “What you see from me is somebody who really believes in his players and has a great deal of confidence in his players. I love the way we play the game and I trust that.”11

The Red Sox were looking forward to Game Seven on Sunday night.

Daisuke Matsuzaka was to take on Jake Westbrook. They had matched up in Game Three, a 4-2 win for Cleveland, Westbrook going seven innings and allowing just the two runs. Game Seven would, of course, determine which team advanced to the World Series and which had to wait through the winter for another go-round.12

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas Merrick and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and a video of the game on YouTube.com. Thanks to Joe Wancho for supplying clippings from Cleveland newspapers.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200710200.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2007/B10200BOS2007.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrMaiU4MjTE

Photo credit: J.D. Drew, courtesy of the Boston Red Sox.

Notes

1 The Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy quoted Schilling from a media session the day before: “In my mind, in October if you’re going to have to win a game and your life depends on it, I want to be a guy that you would say,  ‘Absolutely. We want this guy on the mound. We believe that we have the best chance to win no matter who’s pitching against him.’” Shaughnessy added: “Oversized ego? You bet. And it’s a good thing. This what you want from the lawyer who’s defending your freedom. This is what you want from the doctor who’s performing your brain surgery. And it’s what you want when you send a man out to pitch a game that could be the final game of your season.” Dan Shaughnessy, “Schilling No Doubt Will Be Loaded for Bear,” Boston Globe, October 20, 2007: E1.

2 History sees Carmona now as Roberto Hernández. He was known as Fausto Carmona during the 2007 season and pitched under that name. His birth name, which he reverted to after the 2011, season is Roberto Hernández. For more detail on how Hernández was arrested in his native Dominican Republic in January 2012 due to a doctored birth certificate, one that also claimed he was three years younger than he really was. He served a suspension and returned to the Indians as Hernández in August 2012. See Casey Drottar, “Indians Lookback: The Strange Saga of the Man Once Called Fausto Carmona,” Sports Illustrated, si.com, April 6, 2020, https://www.si.com/mlb/guardians/opinion/indians-lookback-the-strange-saga-of-the-man-once-called-fausto-carmona.

3 Ramírez hit one more grand slam, in 2009 as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and retired with 21, third on the all-time list as of 2024 after Alex Rodríguez (25) and Lou Gehrig (23). None of Ramírez’s major-league-record 29 postseason home runs were grand slams.

4 Bob Ryan, “It’s a Fascinating Turn of Events,” Boston Globe, October 21, 2007: C1. Drew had homered only 11 times in the regular season, down from 20 the year before, when he had been with the Dodgers. Only four of the 11 had been at Fenway Park. The grand slam was the third in Red Sox postseason history. Troy O’Leary had hit the first one, against the Indians, in Game Five of the 1999 ALDS. The second was Johnny Damon’s against the Yankees in Game Seven of the 2004 ALCS. Through the 2023 season, five more have followed. There were two in the 2013 ALCS, one in Game One by David Ortiz and one in Game Six by Shane Victorino. Jackie Bradley Jr. hit one in Game Three of the ALCS against Houston. There were two in the same game in 2021 – in ALCS Game Two against the Astros, J.D. Martinez hit a slam in the first inning and Rafael Devers hit one in the second.

5 Gordon Edes, “Bruce Force,” Boston Globe, October 21, 2007: C1. Drew had been given a five-year, $70 million contract before the season began, making him higher paid than, among others, David Ortiz. He was meant to have been a powerful number-5 hitter in Boston’s lineup but had not really come through until this night.

6 Martinez had been 3-for-3 against Schilling in Game Two. All told, he had a .636 lifetime batting average against Schilling.

7 Drew had driven in a career-high seven runs in a game earlier in the 2007 season, on June 8 against the Arizona Diamondbacks. He also drove in five runs in a game on two other occasions: April 2000 with the St. Louis Cardinals and June 2004 with the Atlanta Braves.

8 Cleveland’s two 19-game winners (Sabathia and Carmona) had started four of the six ALCS games and allowed 23 runs in a combined total of 16⅓ innings. They had struck out 16 but also walked 16.

9 Youkilis was 3-for-4 in the game and batting an even .400 with 7 RBIs in the 2007 postseason.

10 Bud Shaw, “Tide Turns, Taking Tribe’s Momentum Out with It,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 21, 2007: C1.

11 Paul Hoynes, Trusting Wedge Insists He’ll Stay Calm,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 21, 2007: C6.

12 The Red Sox won Game Seven, 11-2, to reach the World Series, in which they swept the Colorado Rockies in four games for the seventh World Series title in franchise history.