April 12, 1994: Red Sox double up Royals in slugfest as Scott Cooper hits for the cycle

The 1994 major-league season is remembered primarily as the first since 1904 to be cut short by a strike and not have a postseason. Interim Commissioner Bud Selig officially called an end to the season on September 14,1 just over a month after the last games were played.

The season did have several bright spots, though. Kent Mercker of the Atlanta Braves and Scott Erickson of the Minnesota Twins had no-hitters in April,2 and Kenny Rogers of the Texas Rangers pitched a perfect game on July 28.3 Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres flirted with batting .400. Matt Williams of the San Francisco Giants and Ken Griffey Jr. of the Seattle Mariners had fans captivated by their pursuit of Roger Maris’s 33-year-old record of 61 home runs; each slugger had 33 homers by the All-Star break and by August, Williams had 40. (Griffey and Chicago’s Frank Thomas led the AL with 36 homers.) And Scott Cooper of the Boston Red Sox hit for the season’s only cycle on April 12.

Cooper had been selected by the Red Sox out of a St. Louis-area high school in the 1986 amateur draft. He spent the next few seasons in Boston’s farm system, with September call-ups in 1990 and 1991. In 1992 the left-handed-batting Cooper made Boston’s roster, playing both first base and third base. As the Red Sox’ regular third baseman after future Hall of Famer Wade Boggs signed with the New York Yankees in December 1992, Cooper earned All-Star honors in both 1993 and 1994.

Under first-year general manager Dan Duquette and third-year skipper Butch Hobson, the Red Sox had a fast start to the 1994 campaign, winning their first four games on their way to 20 wins in their first 27 games.4 Boston traveled to Kauffman Stadium for a three-game series with the Kansas City Royals that began on April 11. The Red Sox won that first game of the series, 8-5, scoring three times in the eighth inning and then tallying three more runs in the 10th.

On April 12 two veteran starters faced off. Boston’s Danny Darwin, in his 17th big-league season, had been with the Red Sox since 1991. In 1993 he led the AL in WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched: 1.068). The 38-year-old right-hander had won his first decision of 1994, holding the Detroit Tigers to two earned runs in five innings.

Opposing Darwin was Kevin Appier. The 26-year-old righty had led all KC starters in wins in each of the past four seasons.5 In 1993 he led the American League with a 2.56 ERA, and his 18-8 record saw him finish third in the AL Cy Young Award voting. His only other start in this early part of the 1994 season was on Opening Day; he allowed three runs in five innings to the Baltimore Orioles as the Royals lost, 6-3.

Leading off the game, Red Sox offseason free-agent signing Otis Nixon bunted for a single, as the Boston Globe put it, “to start the whole mess.”6 Billy Hatcher walked, and Mike Greenwell’s double plated Nixon. Mo Vaughn’s triple – which turned out to be the slugging first baseman’s only three-base hit of the season – drove in two more runs. Designated hitter Andre Dawson singled and stole second base, before Tim Naehring walked.7

Cooper, who began the game with just two hits in 19 at-bats for a .105 average, lined a double to right, driving in both runners and giving Boston a quick 6-0 lead. Appier retired the next three batters, but the Red Sox had sent 10 men to the plate and Appier had thrown 44 pitches.

In the bottom of the first, Darwin needed just 11 pitches to retire the Royals in order. Hatcher homered to lead off the second to push the lead to 7-0. In the home half, Darwin allowed three consecutive one-out singles, resulting in Kansas City’s first run.

Cooper and Dave Valle hit solo home runs in the third, making the score 9-1. All nine runs were earned, and Appier did not return to the mound in the top of the fourth. Instead, Hipólito Pichardo, a starter in his first two years with the Royals, had the pitching duties. In 1994 he was used as both a long reliever and late-inning pitcher.8

Darwin got two quick outs in the bottom of the third but yielded a double to Wally Joyner and a walk to Mike Macfarlane. Dave Henderson, who’d hit .400 with two homers for the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series, blasted a pitch over the left-field fence to cut the deficit to 9-4.

Pichardo retired five straight Red Sox before Cooper batted with two outs in the fifth. Cooper sent a 1-and-0 offering into the left-field corner, past Vince Coleman. According to the Boston Globe, Cooper “provided comic relief”9 when he rounded third and tried to convert a triple into an inside-the-park home run, visibly slowing down as he ran. He was tagged out at the plate, and he lay there for a moment, trying to catch his breath. After the game, Cooper admitted that “the last 180 feet was tough,”10 but the three-bagger meant he was just a single shy of the cycle.

Stan Belinda became Kansas City’s third pitcher in the sixth.11 He struggled with control right away, reaching full counts on the first three batters and walking John Valentin and Nixon. Valentin scored on Hatcher’s double, and Nixon crossed the plate on Greenwell’s sacrifice fly.

Vaughn walked and Belinda hit Dawson with a pitch, loading the bases. Belinda induced groundballs from the next two batters, Naehring and Cooper, but both grounders were booted, one by second baseman José Lind and the other by shortstop David Howard. Three more runs (all unearned) scored. Valentin hit his first homer of the season to drive in three more. When Nixon lined out to end the inning, Boston had again batted around (12 men this time) and the score was 17-4.

Jeff Montgomery pitched the seventh for Kansas City. Vaughn belted a two-run homer deep down the left-field line. It was Boston’s fifth home run of the game. Montgomery drilled Scott Fletcher and then walked Naehring. Cooper swung at Montgomery’s first offering and doubled to right, driving in two more Boston runs, making the score 21-4.

Kansas City rallied in the seventh, scoring four times. Ricky Trlicek allowed three straight singles and a two-out home run by Bob Hamelin, who hit 24 homers that season en route to the AL Rookie of the Year Award.

Royals shortstop Howard took the mound in the top of the eighth. The game was out of hand at 21-8, so skipper Hal McRae called upon Howard.12 Howard had never pitched professionally before, and he told reporters after the game that he last pitched nine years previously as a high-school student in Florida.13 After speaking with pitchers David Cone and Mark Gubicza in the dugout (“I told [them] I could pitch a couple of innings. I always wanted to do it.”14), Howard persuaded pitching coach Bruce Kison to recommend him to McRae.

Howard walked three of the first four batters he faced and gave up a single to Fletcher, but escaped with only one run allowed, thanks to his team’s defense, which threw out a runner at second and turned an inning-ending double play.

The 26-year-old Cooper completed the cycle with a leadoff ninth-inning single against Howard. Cooper said, “I just wanted to hit the ball hard. … I never thought I’d hit for the cycle because I’d never done it at any level. Not at high school or Little League, anywhere. When I had the triple, I figured I had a great chance for it.”15 Cooper lined a 0-and-1 changeup up the middle. He eventually advanced to third as the Red Sox loaded the bases, but Howard retired Greg Blosser on a fly ball to end the threat.16

Trailing 22-8, the Royals did not give up. In the bottom of the ninth, Joyner singled and Brent Mayne walked. With Gary Gaetti batting, Trlicek was called for a balk. Boston manager Hobson called for Tony Fossas to relieve Trlicek. Gaetti banged a two-run double. An out later, Howard also doubled, and Gaetti scored the Royals’ 11th run. Terry Shumpert grounded out to end the game, and after 3 hours and 23 minutes, Boston had prevailed, 22-11.

The Red Sox leveraged 15 hits into 22 runs with 11 extra-base hits, 13 walks, 2 hit-by-pitches, and 3 batters reaching on errors. Through the 2024 season, the 22-run Boston outburst was the highest-scoring game ever against the Royals. It was the most runs the Red Sox had scored since a 24-5 win over the Cleveland Indians in August 1986, and the most runs any major-league team scored in 1994.

Cooper’s early-season average jumped to .280, and his OPS rocketed from .340 to .921. He had added an extra double to his cycle effort, and he had reached base in all six of his at-bats,17 scoring twice and driving in five runs. With the best game of his major-league career, Cooper became the 18th Red Sox player to hit for the cycle.18

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kurt Blumenau and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks SABR members John Fredland, Kurt Blumenau, and Gary Belleville for their suggestions.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA199404120.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1994/B04120KCA1994.htm

Video highlights of Cooper’s cycle can be found at https://www.mlb.com/video/cooper-hits-for-the-cycle-c1874808883.

Photo credit: Scott Cooper, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Abigail Miskowiec, “1994 Winter Meetings: Year-Round Labor Negotiations Resolve Strike.” This article appears in Steve Weingarden and Bill Nowlin, eds., Baseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings: 1958-2016 (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2017), 233-239.

2 Mercker no-hit the Los Angeles Dodgers on April 8. It was his first start of the season and just the fifth game for the Braves. Erickson no-hit the Milwaukee Brewers on April 27, earning his second win of the season against three losses.

3 Thomas E. Schott, “July 28, 1994: Kenny Rogers throws a perfect game in Texas,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-28-1994-kenny-rogers-throws-a-perfect-game-in-texas/. Accessed October 2024. Coincidentally, Rogers’ perfect game came on the same day that players voted to begin the strike on August 12.

4 Boston slumped thereafter, going 34-54 until the players strike ended the season. The Red Sox finished the shortened season in fourth place in the American League East, 17 games behind the New York Yankees.

5 In 1990 Appier tied fellow starter Tom Gordon with 12 victories. Reliever Steve Farr led the team with 13 wins. In 1991 Appier tied fellow starter Bret Saberhagen with 13 victories.

6 Nick Cafardo, “Red Sox Fire 22-Caliber Shot,” Boston Globe, April 13, 1994: 61.

7 Dawson played 75 games for the Red Sox in 1994, but he didn’t play a single inning of defense. Knee problems limited him to DH and PH duties. He stole his second base of the season the next day in a 2-1 loss to the Royals. They were the last two stolen bases of his 21-season career. Dawson had “his ninth or 10th knee operation” in late May, yet he was back in the Red Sox lineup on June 10. See Larry Whiteside, “Dawson May Be Back in Three Weeks,” Boston Globe, May 27, 1994: 54.

8 Pichardo made 45 appearances (all in relief) in the strike-shortened season. On both July 15 and August 6, he entered the game in the fourth inning, but after another pitcher had started the inning.

9 Cafardo.

10 Cafardo.

11 Belinda was granted free agency in December 1994 and signed with the Red Sox as a free agent on April 9, 1995.

12 This was the only mound appearance of Howard’s professional career. In two innings pitched, he allowed one run. Despite yielding two hits and five walks, Howard was the second most effective of the five Royals pitchers. He was the first Royals position player to pitch since Bill Pecota in June 1991.

13 Blair Kerkhoff, “Reliever Yields Telling Blow in No-Win Stint,” Kansas City Star, April 13, 1994: 35.

14 Kerkhoff.

15 Cafardo.

16 This was Blosser’s second-to-last major-league game. He played in just five contests in 1994, getting one hit in 11 at-bats. He had played in just 17 games in 1993 for the Red Sox.

17 Cooper was 5-for-6, and also reached on an error in the sixth inning.

18 Cooper’s cycle was the 19th in franchise history; Boston’s Bobby Doerr hit for the cycle twice, on May 17, 1944, and May 13, 1947. Cooper had a 5-for-5 performance on August 30, 1992, against the California Angels, with a run scored and three RBIs, but this cycle performance was more impressive. Boston traded Cooper (with Cory Bailey) to the St. Louis Cardinals (for Rhéal Cormier and Mark Whiten) at the beginning of the 1995 season. He was granted free agency at the end of the season, in which he batted .230 in 118 games. He spent the 1996 season in Japan, playing for the Seibu Lions. Cooper signed with the Royals, playing his final major-league season in 1997.