October 5, 2007: Manny Ramírez walk-off home run ends standoff of Red Sox, Angels bullpens in Game 2

Hoping to build on the Boston Red Sox’ win over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Game One of the 2007 American League Division Series, 27-year-old Red Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka threw 31 pitches in the top of the first inning of Game Two.

With the first six, he struck out leadoff batter Chone Figgins. Orlando Cabrera made him throw eight pitches and worked a walk. Vladimir Guerrero, recovered from tendinitis enough to play right field again, fouled out to first base on the sixth pitch. Garret Anderson singled to right field and Cabrera ran to third, but on the seventh pitch he saw, Maicer Izturis struck out.

In his first season in American baseball, “Dice-K” had gone 15-12, with an ERA of 4.40 but a team-leading 201 strikeouts. He did have eight seasons of Japanese Pacific League baseball experience, though, all with the Seibu Lions. Over his last six starts of the regular season, he had surrendered almost exactly five earned runs per game. He had survived his first inning of postseason play without giving up a run.

Matsuzaka’s teammates got him two runs in the bottom of the first. Kelvim Escobar was the Angels’ starter, and his 11th big-league season was arguably his best one yet – he had been 18-7 with a 3.40 ERA. He had worked relief in six postseason games for the 2005 Angels, with a 1.59 ERA. He’d won seven of his last eight decisions in 2007.

Escobar walked Kevin Youkilis with one out and allowed David Ortiz’s single to left. After Manny Ramírez flied out to center, Mike Lowell walked and the bases were loaded. Right fielder J.D. Drew – as the Boston Globe noted, “statistically … Boston’s worst hitter with the bases loaded this season (2-for-17, .118”1 – singled over Escobar and up the middle and drove in two runs, Ortiz motoring around third and to the plate. On Escobar’s 30th pitch of the inning, Jason Varitek lined out to second.

Staked to a 2-0 lead, Matsuzaka saw it evaporate in the top of the second. Casey Kotchman walked and DH Kendrys Morales singled off the glove of a diving second baseman Dustin Pedroia, Kotchman going first to third.2 Howie Kendrick struck out on three pitches, but catcher Jeff Mathis’s one-hopper to third scored Kotchman. Figgins then slapped a ball into left that got by Ramírez with a “wacky bounce,” driving in Morales.3 It was scored a double. Cabrera then doubled to left-center, the ball striking the warning track just at the base of the wall, driving in Figgins. It was 3-2, Angels.

The Red Sox went down quietly in the second with both Coco Crisp and Julio Lugo striking out, and Pedroia swinging at the first pitch and grounding out to short.

Both teams had mild scoring opportunities during the next few innings but failed to change the scoreboard. Anderson led off the third with a double to right but was cut down trying to take third on Izturis’s grounder to Lugo at short. While Kotchman was batting, Izturis stole second, then took took third on Kotchman’s groundout to Lugo. Morales flied out to right. In Boston’s half, Ortiz walked on four pitches between strikeouts of Youkilis and Ramírez. Lowell then grounded out.

Kendrick led off the fourth with a single, the third inning in a row the Angels saw the leadoff batter get on base, but Mathis popped up foul to Varitek and Figgins and Cabrera grounded out. With two outs for the Red Sox, Crisp bunted for a single and stole second before Lugo struck out.

Matsuzaka retired the first two Angels in the fifth, but Izturis singled (when Matsuzaka failed to cover first base) and then stole second. With the count full on Kotchman, Matsuzaka’s 96th pitch of the game was a wild pitch, putting Angels on the corners. Manager Terry Francona called on right-hander Javier Lopez against Morales – a switch-hitter whose OPS was 300 points higher against right-handers than lefties – and Morales hit into a force play at second.

In their half of the fifth, the Red Sox tied the game, 3-3. Pedroia doubled down the line in left and into the corner. He went to third on Youkilis’s groundout to Escobar. Ortiz was walked intentionally, and Ramírez walked on seven pitches.4 Lowell swung at the first pitch and hit a fly ball to fairly deep center. Pedroia was able to tag and score. Drew grounded out to first, but the game was tied.

It turned into a battle of the bullpens. Manny Delcarmen took over for Boston and set down the Angels in order in the sixth. Los Angeles’ Scot Shields struck out Varitek, walked Crisp, and then saw Lugo out on a fly ball to center, with Crisp thrown out because he neglected to retouch second base on his way back to first, a double play.

After hitting Guerrero with one out in the seventh, Delcarmen departed and Hideki Okajima took over. Anderson lined out and Izturis struck out. The Red Sox got a pair of two-out walks as Shields was perhaps pitching too carefully to Ortiz and Ramírez. But Lowell flied out to center.

The top of the eighth offered a lot of adventure after Jonathan Papelbon relieved Okajima with two outs and nobody on base. Kendrick grounded Papelbon’s first pitch to Lowell at third and reached safely on an errant throw. Mathis came up to bat and, on the second pitch, Kendrick stole second.

With a runner in scoring position, Angels manager Mike Scioscia had Juan Rivera pinch-hit for Mathis. On the third pitch to Rivera, Kendrick stole third base. Two pitches later, Rivera walked, and Reggie Willits ran for him. On Papelbon’s second pitch to Figgins, Willits stole second base. It was the third stolen base of the inning and there was still not a run. Figgins took a called third strike and the inning was over. All told, the Angels had been 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position.

Justin Speier relieved Shields in the bottom of the eighth and got two grounders to second and a fly ball to right.

The game remained 3-3 heading into the ninth inning. The Angels were hoping to win and head back to Anaheim with a win apiece; they had the best home record in the majors, 54-27. 

As it happened, Papelbon secured all three outs on popups to shortstop Lugo, one in shallow center, the second one to the edge of the outfield grass just a bit to the right side of second base, and the third into shallow left field. There was a walk mixed in, but nothing came of it.

Bottom of the ninth. Lugo, perhaps energized by catching all those popups, swung at the first pitch and singled to left – the first hit off the Angels bullpen. Pedroia grounded out, short to first, Lugo going to second base. Francisco Rodriguez relieved Shields, struck out Youkilis, then pitched to David Ortiz. The situation was arguably ripe for another “Big Papi” moment, but Scioscia didn’t want that and had Ortiz walked intentionally – his fourth consecutive walk in the game.5

Manny Ramírez came to bat. Due to an oblique strain, he had not been in a game from August 28 to September 25, though in the six regular-season games he’d played in at the end of the season, he’d been 7-for-18. And he had 20 postseason home runs to his credit. He’d been 1-for-3 in Game One. 

On the second pitch, Ramírez launched a high arcing drive well over everything in left field, completely out of the park and onto Lansdowne Street beyond, giving the Red Sox a 6-3 walkoff win at 12:44 A.M.6 It was the first walk-off home run he had hit for the Red Sox, after seven years with the team.7

Mike Lowell said, “He actually told me in the ninth before everything happened, ‘I’m going to end this.’”8

For the Red Sox, it was their ninth postseason walk-off hit in franchise history.9

Lugo’s hit had been Boston batters’ first since Pedroia’s leadoff double in the fifth. The Red Sox bullpen – which hadn’t seen any work at all since September 30 – had thrown the final 4 1/3 innings of the game without giving up even one base hit. Pitching coach John Farrell had to have been pleased.

Speier suffered the loss. Papelbon got the win. The two teams headed west to play Game Three on Sunday, October 7. Curt Schilling was not at Fenway Park to celebrate; he had already flown west to be better rested for Game Three.

The Angels had lost eight consecutive postseason games to the Red Sox, dating back to 1986. Some of these same Angels had seen David Ortiz hit the walk-off home run that eliminated the Angels in the 2004 ALDS.10

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Manny Ramírez, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and video excerpts of the game on YouTube.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200710050.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2007/B10050BOS2007.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyvvDH1GcAE

Notes

1 Gordon Edes, “Manny of the Hour,” Boston Globe, October 6, 2007: D7.

2 It looked as though Pedroia might have injured his shoulder, but the trainer gave him the green light and he continued.

3 Edes, “Manny of the Hour.”

4 There was more to the story than just a walk, though. A foul ball Ramírez hit to the photographer’s pit next to the Red Sox dugout was one that catcher Mathis would have caught … except that 17-year-old Danny Vinik reached over Mathis’s glove and made the catch himself, preventing the Angels from making the third out. Vinik’s father, Jeff, was a limited partner in the Red Sox. Because the ball was outside the field of play, there was no problem. It was “[m]aybe the Red Sox’s best play of the night. Because without it maybe the Angels take a lead into the ninth.” Kevin Baxter, “Red Sox Hero Is 17-Year-Old Fan in the Stands,” Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2007: D6.

5 After the game, Scioscia said, “In that situation, you pick your poison.” Jack Curry, “Walking Ortiz, Angels Allow Ramírez to Play the Hero,” New York Times, October 6, 2007: D2.

6 Angels catcher Mike Napoli said the pitch was supposed to be a fastball “down and away, and it went up and in.” Rodriguez said, “I can’t really say what it was, but obviously it wasn’t a good pitch.” Mike DiGiovanna, “Monster Mashed,” Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2007: D1.

7 It was the 21st postseason home run of Ramirez’s career, leaving him one behind Bernie Williams. He tied Williams with another home run in Game Three of the 2007 ALDS, and didn’t stop – retiring with 29 postseason home runs.

8 Gordon Edes, “Sox Flying High Long after Ramírez HR,” Boston Globe, October 7, 2007: C1. In second place through the 2025 season is Houston’s Jose Altuve.

9 The previous playoff walk-off wins were:

• Game Eight, 1912 World Series (Larry Gardner sacrifice fly)
• Game Three, 1915 World Series (Duffy Lewis single)
• Game Two, 1916 World Series (Del Gainer single)
• Game Six, 1975 World Series (Carlton Fisk home run)
• Game Three, 2003 ALDS (Trot Nixon home run)
• Game Three, 2004 ALDS (David Ortiz home run)
• Game Four, 2004 ALCS (David Ortiz home run)
• Game Five, 2004 ALCS (David Ortiz single)

10 The Red Sox secured the series sweep with a 9-1 win over the Angels in Game Three. They beat the Cleveland Indians in seven games in the AL Championship Series, then swept the Colorado Rockies in the World Series.