Had the Red Sox held the 5-2 lead they had heading to the bottom of the eighth in the deciding Game Seven, they would have advanced to the World Series for the first time since 1986. They did not. After seven innings, starter Pedro Martínez had left the mound, expecting that he had thrown his final pitch of the night, and been congratulated by his teammates.

But Red Sox manager Grady Little stunned almost everyone by sending Martínez back out to work the eighth. It didn’t work. A double, a single, and two more doubles and the Yankees had tied the score. They went on to win in the bottom of the 11th on Aaron Boone’s home run, reaching the World Series for the sixth time in eight seasons. Within two weeks, Little was no longer employed by the Red Sox.2

Both teams in the 2004 opener had new managers — Lee Mazzilli for Baltimore and Terry Francona for Boston, Mazzilli having replaced Mike Hargrove. The Orioles had added three prime free agents —Javy López, Rafael Palmeiro, and Miguel Tejada — and brought back free-agent pitcher Sidney Ponson.3

Right-hander Ponson was Mazzilli’s starting pitcher for the season opener. Ponson was starting his seventh season with the Orioles. The team hadn’t had a winning record since 1997, but Ponson had been 14-6 for them in 2003 before being traded to San Francisco on July 31. Now he was back with Baltimore. He had been only 1-9 against the Red Sox to date in his career.4

In the top of the first, Ponson allowed a two-out single to left fielder Manny Ramírez (the hitter’s 500th base hit for the Red Sox) but then struck out DH David Ortiz. The Red Sox were playing without two regulars, both out to injuries — shortstop Nomar Garciaparra and right fielder Trot Nixon.

Pedro Martínez was back in a game that counted for the first time since his fateful implosion the previous October. He had been 18-2 in April to this point in his Red Sox years. He gave up an infield single and then, after the second out, another single, to left field, but Ramírez threw out Melvin Mora trying to go from first to third.

With one out in the second, Boston right fielder Gabe Kapler reached first on an error, but he was erased trying to steal second on a strike-’em-out, throw-’em-out double play as catcher Jason Varitek went down swinging.

In the bottom of the second inning, the Orioles scored three runs. The first came on a leadoff home run by catcher Javy López, hit “a dozen rows deep in the left field stands, barely inside the foul pole,” on an 89-mph fastball.5 Martínez had given up only seven home runs in all of 2003, none to a right-handed batter.6 His 2.22 ERA had led both leagues. López had played for the Atlanta Braves from 1992 through 2003. This was his first at-bat for Baltimore after signing as a free agent in the offseason.

The right fielder, Jay Gibbons, singled. With DH David Segui at the pate, Gibbons stole second base. Martínez then hit Segui with a pitch, prompting loud boos from the fans. This was not looking good for the Red Sox, and it got worse when Orioles left fielder Larry Bigbie hit a dribbler back to Martínez, who committed a throwing error trying to get Bigbie out at first base. The wild throw allowed Gibbons to score and the runners to go to second and third. Center fielder Luis Matos lined a single to left, scoring Segui for a 3-0 Orioles lead.

Baltimore second baseman Brian Roberts stepped into the batter’s box. Matos stole second. Maybe Martínez thought enough was enough. He struck out Roberts, and struck out shortstop Mora. Miguel Tejada, another new Oriole, their shortstop who had come over from Oakland, made the third out on a ball hit to deep right-center.7

The Red Sox did reclaim a run in the top of the third. With one out, shortstop Pokey Reese walked. Center fielder Johnny Damon tried to reach on a bunt but was called out for interference for running inside the baseline. Ponson’s throw hit him. Reese was placed back at first base. Third baseman Bill Mueller singled; Reese stopped at second, but scored when Ramírez also singled, a groundball into center field. Ortiz popped up foul to the third baseman, but Boston had made it 3-1.

After the shaky second inning, Martínez recovered and pitched well for the remainder of this start. With one out in the bottom of the third, López singled but was erased on a 4-6-3 double play.

The Red Sox got two on in the fourth (Kapler singled to right and second baseman Mark Bellhorn doubled to right) but did not score. Reese had tried to surprise the Orioles defense by bunting for a base hit, but it didn’t work. He was apparently bunting on his own and was reportedly spoken to after the game by his manager.8 Ponson pounced and Reese was thrown out for the final out. Martínez set down the Orioles in order in the bottom of the inning.

Bill Mueller singled and David Ortiz was hit by a pitch, but the Red Sox left two more on base in the fifth, when first baseman Kevin Millar struck out on three pitches. They left two on in the sixth on back-to-back walks after Kapler had singled but been taken off the bases by a 4-6-3 double play hit into by catcher Varitek. Rodrigo López relieved Ponson and got Damon to ground out, 6-3.

Martínez had allowed a single to Tejada and walked first baseman Palmeiro in the fifth, but escaped any further damage.9 He retired the side in order in the sixth.

In the seventh, another double play followed Mueller’s leadoff single. Ortiz walked but Millar flied out to left-center. The Orioles, though, bumped up their lead from 3-1 to 6-1. Mike Timlin relieved Martínez to start the inning. He struck out Matos. Roberts walked and was cut down trying for another stolen base. Timlin walked Mora. Tejada singled. Palmeiro singled up the middle, scoring Mora. López singled to right-center — his third hit of the game, which dropped in untouched between Damon and Millar — picking up two more RBIs. Alan Embree replaced Timlin and got Gibbons to fly out to center.

Mike DeJean came out of the Orioles bullpen to throw the eighth. After the first out, Varitek walked and Bellhorn singled. Brian Daubach pinch-hit for Reese and walked, loading the bases. Damon grounded to shortstop for a fielder’s choice with Varitek scoring. Mueller grounded out. It was 6-2 in Baltimore’s favor.

The Orioles added a run in the bottom of the eighth to make it 7-2. Scott Williamson pitched for the Red Sox. Segui led off with a double to right. Bigbie struck out. Matos reached on an error by César Crespo, who had taken over for Reese at shortstop. Segui scored on the misplay. Two groundouts ended the inning.

Ramirez was first up in the Red Sox ninth; he struck out. Ellis Burks pinch-hit for David Ortiz and Burks grounded out, back to the pitcher, left-hander B.J. Ryan.10 Millar singled. Kapler singled, but Ryan struck out Varitek swinging, for the final out. In all the Red Sox had left 14 men on base, including two in every inning but one from the third through the ninth. They were never retired in order. The Orioles had left seven.

“You hold this team to two runs, you are doing something,” said Mazzilli after the game.11 Pedro Martínez was not available to writers after the game and had reportedly left while it was still in progress, prompting critical comment.12

Ponson got the win, his first of 11 in 2004. “It was a battle,” he said. “I’m not happy with the way I threw, but I’m happy with the outcome.”13

The season seemed full of promise, with a new manager and three exceptional free agents. Columnist Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post saw the season as one that might offer some hope for Baltimore fans and be worth watching.14

Ponson won 11, but lost 15, for the third-place Orioles, with a 5.30 earned-run average. After the season, he signed again with the Orioles as a free agent. Martínez got the loss, of course, but finished 16-9 (3.60).

“There are going to be better days,” said Damon (0-for-5) after the game.15

The Red Sox finished the season strongly, beating the Yankees in a seven-game ALCS and then sweeping St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, Martínez winning Game Three.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org. Thanks to Malcom Allen for supplying Baltimore Sun articles.

Baker, Kent. “For Red Sox, Opener Again Turns into Frustrating Night,” Baltimore Sun, April 5, 2004: 5D.

Schmuck, Peter. “O’s Warm to the Occasion,” Baltimore Sun, April 5, 2004: 1A.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL200404040.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B04040BAL2004.htm

Notes

1 Dave Sheinin, “In Windy Opener, Retooled Birds Blow Past Sox,” Washington Post, April 5, 2004: D1, D4.

2 The team said his firing was due to other reasons. See Mike Asher, “Little Fired as Red Sox Manager,” Washington Post, October 28, 2003. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/2003/10/28/little-fired-as-red-sox-manager/95d1862f-e678-4094-9c82-5848af895066/. Accessed September 1, 2021.

3 The first pitch of the game involved all three free agents. Called by Lopez, Ponson threw the pitch. It was fielded by Tejada and thrown to Palmeiro. The game was nationally televised. It drew 47,683.

4 For a profile on Ponson in the game, see Ken Murray, “Ponson Stares Down Nerves, Red Sox,” Baltimore Sun, April 5, 2004: 3D.

5 Associated Press, “Lopez Hits Homer off Martinez,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, April 5, 2004: 97, 92. Lopez had hit 343 home runs for Atlanta in 2003. See also Kevin Van Valkenburg, “Right off the Bat, J. Lopez Is a Hit with New Home Crowd,” Baltimore Sun, April 5, 2004: 1A.

6 Gordon Edes, “Francona Was into the Game Early,” Boston Globe, April 5, 2004: D5.

7 Tejada led the American League in runs batted in in 2004, with 150.

8 Gordon Edes.

9 Palmeiro had played for the Orioles from 1994 to 1998; this was his first game back with his former team.

10 Burks had been with the Red Sox from 1987 to 1992, and now was back with his original team. There was no way he was going to supplant Ortiz as DH or Manny Ramírez in left field. As it turns out, he played in only 11 games but was a respected member of the team and the one chosen to carry the World Series trophy off the team plane when it landed back in Boston after winning the 2004 World Series.

11 Damon Hack, “Martinez and Red Sox Get a Cold Snap.” New York Times, April 5, 2004: D3.

12 Dan Shaughnessy, “Two early departures troubling,” Boston Globe, April 5, 2004: D1, D6. For a follow-up on the story, see Nick Cafardo, “Martinez matter said resolved,” Boston Globe, April 7, 2004: D2.

13 Joe Christensen, “Lopez First-Pitch HR Sets Tone as Red Sox Fall in Mazzilli Debut,” Baltimore Sun, April 5, 2004: 1D.

14 Thomas Boswell, “For One Night, a Glimpse of Days Ahead,” Washington Post, April 5, 2004: D1, D4.

15 Bob Hohler, “Shaky Start,” Boston Globe, April 5, 2004: D1, D6.

The veteran was manager Terry Francona’s choice to start the second game of the 2004 season, on April 6 at Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Pitching for Lee Mazzilli’s Orioles, hoping to build on the team’s 7-2 win against the Red Sox on Opening Night, April 4, was left-hander Eric DuBose. He’d worked four games in 2002, then fairly steadily in the second half of 2003. In 17 games, he had been 3-6 with a good 3.79 ERA for Baltimore.

It was DuBose’s 11th career start and Schilling’s 339th. As a Washington Post writer observed, “Schilling, in fact, has made 142 more big-league starts than the Orioles’ entire rotation, a reality that makes the Orioles’ gamble on their young pitching look frightening.”2  

Each team sent up three batters in the first inning. Boston third baseman Bill Mueller was the only batter to reach base but was taken off the basepaths when DH Ellis Burks grounded into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.

The Red Sox went ahead in the second. Left fielder Manny Ramírez walked on five pitches to lead off the inning. First baseman David Ortiz singled into right field, Ramírez holding at second base. Right fielder Kevin Millar hit a grounder back to DuBose, who threw Ortiz out at second.

With catcher Jason Varitek at bat, the first run of the game scored on DuBose’s wild pitch, Ramírez running home. The pitch was indeed wild: As the Baltimore Sun explained, “[DuBose’s] cleat got caught on the mound during his delivery, and he fired an awkward pitch all the way to the backstop, a good 15 feet off-target—or, in Uecker speak, ‘just a bit outside.’ DuBose nearly fell face first. ‘I thought I was a goner there for a second,’ he said.”3

Millar took second on the wild pitch and then scored when Varitek singled to right-center for a 2-0 Boston lead. Second baseman Mark Bellhorn walked but the next two batters grounded into outs.

After getting one out in the bottom of the inning, Schilling allowed two singles—both to center field (catcher Javy López and right fielder Jay Gibbons)—but was again helped out by a double play.

Only one batter reached base in the third inning—O’s center fielder Luis Matos on a single off Schilling.

In the top of the fourth, the Red Sox added a run when Millar hit a one-out solo home run to left field. Meanwhile, Schilling continued his efficient work. As the Baltimore Sun observed, through his first three innings, “the 37-year-old Schilling provided the 27-year-old DuBose with a clinic, throwing first-pitch strikes to the first 10 batters he faced.”4

Burks drew a two-out walk for the Red Sox in the top of the fifth but was forced out at second base on Ramirez’s grounder to shortstop Miguel Tejada.  

The Orioles got on the board in the bottom of the fifth. After one out, left fielder Larry Bigbie singled to right. Matos collected another hit, an RBI double to left-center that drove in Bigbie. Schilling got the next two batters to fly out. 

Mazzilli replaced DuBose in the top of the sixth, after a one-out error put Millar on base and DuBose walked the bases loaded on seven pitches to Varitek and six to Bellhorn.5 John Parrish came on in relief. The first batter he faced was shortstop Pokey Reese. The Orioles brought the infield in. Reese grounded the ball hard to second baseman Brian Roberts, who fired the ball home to López, cutting down Millar at the plate. Johnny Damon flied out to right field and the threat was over. The Red Sox still led, 3-1.

Schilling was still dealing. With one out in the sixth, he walked first baseman Rafael Palmeiro but struck out both López and Gibbons swinging.

After two outs in the Boston seventh, Ramírez walked. Parrish had Ramírez picked off first, but his throw went astray and Ramírez made it to second. Parrish got Ortiz to pop up to second base, stranding Ramírez.

Alan Embree took over pitching for the Red Sox and retired the Orioles in order in the bottom of the seventh. In turn, Parrish set down the Red Sox in order in the top of the eighth. Mike Timlin replaced Embree and likewise retired all three batters he faced.

In the top of the ninth, Parrish surrendered a single to Reese. Damon walked. Mike DeJean was brought in to face Mueller and got him to ground into a 3-6-1 double play, Reese taking third. Burks then hit a ball to third baseman Melvin Mora, which Mora misplayed. Reese scored for a 4-1 lead. Gabe Kapler came up to bat, and Reese stole second but got no farther as Kapler grounded out, third to first.

It was the bottom of the ninth. Francona called on the man planned to be his closer, Keith Foulke, acquired as a free agent over the winter. Foulke had saved an American League-leading 43 games for Oakland the year before (and had been 9-1 with a 2.08 ERA). He earned his first save for the Red Sox by getting Palmeiro to ground out short to first, Lopez to fly out to right field, and Gibbons to strike out swinging.6

The bullpen had been perfect. In three innings of work, Embree, Timlin, and Foulke faced nine batters and set them all down in succession.

The Red Sox had their first win of the 2004 season.

DuBose had pitched reasonably well, allowing only four hits in his 5⅓ innings, but he had walked six. Schilling allowed six hits in six full innings, but walked only one.  

Schilling had his first of what became 21 wins, the best in both leagues, his 21-6 record the best winning percentage in the AL. He later went on to win one game in each round of postseason play. After his first Red Sox win, Michael Holley had written of the Red Sox pitcher, “You can call Schilling a No. 2 starter if you want, but it’s like saying ‘Othello’ is No. 2 in Shakespeare’s rotation after “Hamlet.’”7

Acknowledgements

This game was fact-checked by Russ Walsh and copyedited by Len Levin.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL200404060.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B04060BAL2004.htm

Notes

1 It was a trade that worked out well for both teams. The Diamondbacks received three pitchers, all of whom continued or went on to major-league careers: Jorge De La Rosa, Casey Fossum, and Brandon Lyon, and outfielder prospect Mike Goss. Interestingly, just three days later, De La Rosa—who ultimately won 104 games in his major-league career—was part of a nine-player trade Arizona made with the Milwaukee Brewers.

2 Dave Sheinin, “Orioles Can’t Deal with Red Sox’ Second Ace,” Washington Post, April 7, 2004: D1.

3 Joe Christensen, “Schilling Clips O’s Wings, 4-1, in Sox Debut,” Baltimore Sun, April 7, 2004: 1E.

4 Joe Christensen.

5 The error was one of two committed by Melvin Mora, playing third base regularly for the first time in his career. It was his third error in the first two games of the new 2004 season. He committed a career high 21 in 2002 but was five behind Cleveland’s Casey Blake.  

6 Foulke had overcome a difficult spring, with a 15.00 ERA, but come through when it counted. See Gordon Edes, “Some Sighs of Relief on Foulke, Pen Mates,” Boston Globe, April 7, 2004: D2.

7 Michael Holley, “The New Guy Is Now Officially in the Club,” Boston Globe, April 7, 2004: D1, D3.

On Saturday night, April 10, 2004, the Boston Red Sox evened their record at 3-3 with a 4-1 win over the visiting Toronto Blue Jays. The win went to Pedro Martínez, his first of the year. The hit that drove in Boston’s first two runs, making it the game-winner, was a two-run homer by David Ortiz off reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Roy Halladay in the bottom of the sixth inning.

The next day, on Easter Sunday at Fenway Park, Ortiz hit a game-winning home run for the second day in a row. This one was more dramatic – a walk-off two-run homer in the 12th inning, giving the Red Sox a 6-4 win.

Curt Schilling, who had joined the Red Sox in a November 2003 trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks, was the starting pitcher for Boston manager Terry Francona. This was Schilling’s second start for the Red Sox and his first at Fenway Park.1 He had won, 4-1, in Baltimore on April 6, Boston’s first win of the season.

Carlos Tosca was the Blue Jays manager; he had Miguel Batista start. The 33-year-old right-hander, signed as a free agent in December 2003, had been Schilling’s teammate with the Diamondbacks for the past three seasons. They had earned World Series rings with Arizona in 2001.2

Schilling surrendered a pair of singles in the top of the first, but the first runs scored were by the Red Sox in the bottom of the inning. A leadoff walk to second baseman Mark Bellhorn and a walk to Ortiz, the DH, were sandwiched around a lineout. Left fielder Manny Ramírez then hit an opposite-field double to right field and drove in Bellhorn. Ortiz scored from third on a sacrifice fly to right by the next batter, first baseman Kevin Millar.

There wasn’t another base hit in the game until the top of the fourth, when the Blue Jays tied it. Center fielder Vernon Wells swung at Schilling’s first pitch and led off with a double. The second pitch of the inning hit first baseman Carlos Delgado. With one strike, DH Josh Phelps doubled to center, driving in Wells. Third baseman Eric Hinske grounded out to first base, unassisted, Delgado scoring on the play. Schilling struck out the next two batters, his fifth and six strikeouts of the game.

Batista, who had set down the Red Sox in order in the second and third, pitched another one-two-three inning in the fourth, and ran his perfect streak to 12 in a row before walking Bellhorn with two outs in the fifth.

In the top of the sixth, after Phelps had skittered a single up the middle, Hinske hit a two-out, two-run homer into the Red Sox bullpen in right field. It was 4-2, Blue Jays.

Batista set the Red Sox down in order again in the sixth.

Neither side scored in the seventh; the only runner to reach base was Boston right fielder Gabe Kapler with a single to left. It was only the second hit of the game off Batista. After Francona made a few defensive changes, including moving center fielder Cesar Crespo to shortstop, Schilling pitched the top of the eighth and retired the Jays in order. He had struck out 10 and walked none.

Blue Jays manager Tosca had Terry Adams relieve Batista in the bottom of the eighth. Adams, a 31-year-old veteran of nine seasons with three National League clubs, had signed with Toronto as a free agent during the offseason. He walked the first batter he faced, Bellhorn, on his eighth pitch. It was Bellhorn’s third walk of the game. Third baseman Bill Mueller – the 2003 AL batting champion – popped up to second baseman Orlando Hudson in shallow right field.

Tosca called in left-hander Valerio de los Santos for the left-handed-hitting Ortiz. Ortiz singled, and Tosca went back to the bullpen for Justin Speier. Manny Ramírez singled to left, loading the bases. Millar also grounded a single into left, and Bellhorn scored. Speier struck out catcher Jason Varitek and Kapler, preserving the Jays’ 4-3 lead. (Adams was charged with one run but still credited with a hold.3)

Alan Embree relieved Schilling in the ninth. With two outs, after walking a batter and giving up a single, he was replaced by Keith Foulke, who secured the third out.

Kerry Ligtenberg – yet another free-agent signing for the Blue Jays’ staff – was asked to close out the game. On an 0-and-2 count, Crespo led off slapping a double over third base and down the left-field line. Dave McCarty, who had pinch-hit in the seventh and remained in the game at first base, struck out. Bellhorn lined a single to right field, and Crespo scored the tying run.

After Ligtenberg stuck out Mueller while Bellhorn stole second, Tosca called in his sixth pitcher of the game, Jason Kershner. Ortiz hit a fly ball to the deepest part of the ballpark in center field, but Vernon Wells leapt and made a catch right in front of the 379-foot sign. It was the third out and the game went into extra innings.

Toronto loaded the bases in the top of the 10th against Foulke. Left fielder Frank Catalanotto led off with a single. After getting Wells to fly out, Foulke struck out Delgado on three pitches but walked both Phelps and Hinske. He then got Kevin Cash to hit to the ball back to him, and he threw to first for the third out.

Aquilino Lopez relieved Kershner for the 10th and promptly gave up back-to-back singles to Manny Ramírez and Kevin Millar, but then got Varitek to ground into a 4-6-3 double play and Kapler to pop up foul to third base.

Bobby Jones replaced Foulke on the mound for the Red Sox. He threw eight pitches, not one of them for a strike, and Toronto had Hudson on second and shortstop Chris Gomez on first with nobody out. Francona quickly summoned Mark Malaska from the bullpen.4 Right fielder Reed Johnson hit the ball back to Malaska, who threw to second base for a force out. Malaska completed his escape from the jam by striking out Catalanotto and getting Wells to ground into a force play at second.

Lopez retired the three Red Sox batters he faced in the bottom of the 11th.

Malaska continued for Boston in the 12th. With two outs, Hinske worked a 3-and-2 count and then hit a ball deep to the edge of the warning track in center field for the third out.

First up in the bottom of the 12th was Bill Mueller, who worked a five-pitch walk from Lopez. David Ortiz stepped into the batter’s box. The count went to 2-and-2 before he unloaded a game-winning walk-off home run into the second row of the Monster Seats in left-center field.5

It was, NESN broadcaster Don Orsillo informed viewers, “the second straight Easter Sunday [in which] the Red Sox have ended it with a walk-off home run at Fenway Park.”6

The Red Sox won, 6-4. Malaska got the win – the only one he would get in 2004, as it happened.7 Schilling praised former teammate Batista after the game, and said he was disappointed with his own performance.8

Tosca summed up: “Lopie gave us a chance to win the game. He’s not used to pitching three innings.” The Toronto Star’s Richard Griffin wrote, “That’s the point” in suggesting that Tosca might be better advised to trust his bullpen. He had cycled through three relievers in the eighth inning alone.9

Kevin Millar said, “He’s one of the best lefthanded power guys in the league. David Ortiz is not a guy to be messed with.”10

For Ortiz, it was the second game in a row that his home run provided the winning run. It wasn’t the last time in 2004 that an Ortiz home run won a game for the ultimate World Series champion Red Sox. Two of them won games in the postseason: one that clinched the American League Division Series sweep of the Anaheim Angels and one that beat the New York Yankees in Game Four of the ALCS, beginning Boston’s history-making rally from a three-games-to-none series deficit.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Carl Riechers 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, and YouTube.com. Thanks to Adrian Fung for supplying Toronto newspaper accounts.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200404110.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B04110BOS2004.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovZyuJ-ZTHc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTjfCkBjt0k

Notes

1 Schilling had started his career with the Red Sox but had been traded to Baltimore at the end of July 1988 and made his major-league debut with the Orioles that September.

2 With a 10-9 record, Batista had tied for the most wins on the 2003 team, along with Brandon Webb and Oscar Villareal. The team finished third in the NL West. Schilling had an offyear in wins and losses, with a record of 8-9 despite a 2.95 ERA.

3 On July 24 Adams was traded to the Red Sox for switch-hitting minor-league third baseman John Hattig. Hattig made the majors briefly in 2006, hitting .333 in 24 at-bats for Toronto. Adams found himself working in 19 games as a Red Sox reliever, with a record of 2-0. He did not pitch in the postseason.

4 It was the final appearance of Jones’s six-season major-league career.

5 Bob Ryan wrote that, unlike the catch Toronto’s center fielder made in the ninth, “Wells would have had to be 50 feet tall to catch the Ortiz blast.” Bob Ryan, “Payoff Is a Day Layoff after Stirring Victory,” Boston Globe, April 12, 2004: C3.

6 Boston Red Sox television broadcast (NESN), “04/11/2004 Toronto at Boston (Part 2),” YouTube video (BrunoSox23), 2:00:35, accessed May 22, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTjfCkBjt0k. It had been Nomar Garciaparra who had won the April 20, 2003, game against the visiting Blue Jays, 6-5, with a walk-off ninth-inning home run also hit into the Green Monster seats. Footage of it was shown at the very end of the April 11, 2004, NESN broadcast.

7 Malaska was the youngest pitcher in the Boston bullpen. After the game he said that though it was an early-season game, “This was definitely the biggest game situation of my career. When you get an opportunity to pitch in a game like this and win it, the feeling is unbelievable. I’m finally taking some breaths.” Bob Hohler, “Ortiz Powers Red Sox,” Boston Globe, April 12, 2004: C1, C5. Malaska relieved in 19 games, finishing 1-1 with a 4.50 ERA. Like Adams, he did not pitch in the postseason, either.

8 Larry Millson, “Ortiz’s Blast Caps Late Boston Rally,” Globe and Mail (Toronto), April 12, 2004: S3. See also Paul Harber, “Schilling Shakes It Off,” Boston Globe, April 12, 2004: C3.

9 Richard Griffin, “Tosca Overmanaging an Experienced Bullpen,” Toronto Star, April 12, 2004: C6. Griffin acknowledged that the team did not have a clear closer, but after Batista had left with a two-run lead, “five outs and five pitchers later, the game was tied” and there were only two relievers left in the pen. The Star’s Geoff Baker quoted Tosca: “We’re going to try different things until we can find a guy who can step up and get us there.” Geoff Baker, “Blue Jays Lose Boston Marathon,” Toronto Star, April 12,2004: C6.

10 Hohler.

As the 2004 season began, there had been three memorable head-to-head competitions between the two teams in final series to determine the American League pennant—1949, 1999, and 2003. At the end of another season, 1978, a one-game Yankees-Red Sox playoff decided the AL East Division title.

The Red Sox, however, had come up short every time, and baseball’s record books reflected this imbalance.

For Red Sox fans in April 2004, the loss in the seventh game of the 2003 American League Championship Series was particularly painful because Boston had a 4-0 lead after the first four innings and a 5-2 lead heading into the bottom of the eighth. The Yankees had tied the game in the eighth, then won when Tim Wakefield—pitching in relief after winning two games earlier in the series as a starter—allowed an 11th-inning leadoff home run to Aaron Boone, sending the Yankees to another World Series and the Red Sox home for the winter.1  

Exactly six months after that October night, the 37-year-old Wakefield was new manager Terry Francona’s choice for starting pitcher in the first matchup of 2004 between the two rivals, a Friday night game at Fenway Park.2 The Yankees, who had opened the season with two games against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at the Tokyo Dome in Japan, came to Boston with a 5-4 record. The Red Sox were 4-4.

The knuckleballing Wakefield had typically been a starter, six times winning 11 or more games for Boston. He had been 11-7 in 2003. This was his second start in 2004; the first had been eight days earlier in Baltimore, a no-decision in a 3-2 loss to the Orioles.

Facing the Red Sox for Joe Torre’s Yankees was right-hander Javier Vázquez. The 27-year-old right-hander had come to the Yankees in a December 2003 trade for Randy Choate, Nick Johnson, and Juan Rivera after six seasons in Montreal. He had won 10 or more games each of the four preceding years.

On a chilly night, with the game-time temperature at 41 degrees, the game was sold out, but some of the vitriol that one might have expected diehard Sox fans to shower on the Yankees was missing. As one New York Times writer put it, “The brutal heckling and taunting that have distinguished this rivalry were at a minimum.”3

Red Sox fans, though, were primed for resumption of the rivalry. The team announced that demand for tickets was at an all-time high and that they had sold 2.4 million tickets of a capacity 2.7 million even before Opening Day.4

Wakefield got outs from the first three batters he faced, and the Red Sox jumped on Vázquez right away. Leadoff batter Johnny Damon reached on an error by first baseman Jason Giambi. Third baseman Bill Mueller (the 2003 AL batting champion) homered into the Yankees bullpen in right field, and after nine pitches it was 2-0, Boston.

One out later, left fielder Manny Ramírez homered too, also to right field, though Tyler Kepner of the New York Times wrote that television replays showed the ball had “hit near the top of the five-foot wall and should not have been ruled a homer. But Gary] Sheffield, playing right, never argued.”5

The Red Sox offense kept rolling against Vázquez. Right fielder Kevin Millar singled off the left-field wall, but was forced at second base by DH Ellis Burks’ grounder to short. Mark Bellhorn, the second baseman, walked. Catcher Doug Mirabelli had become the catcher of choice whenever Wakefield pitched. Not only did it give regular catcher Jason Varitek a break, but Mirabelli had much more success handling Wakefield’s knuckleball. Mirabelli hit a ball to Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, who misplayed the routine grounder for the Yankees’ second error of the inning, and Burks scored from second base on the misplay. It was 4-0, Red Sox.

Yankees catcher Jorge Posada hit a two-out solo home run into the center-field bleachers in the top of the second, and the Yankees were on the board, but no one else reached base in the second or the third for New York.

Jeter singled to lead off the fourth, but third baseman Álex Rodríguez struck out swinging6 and after Giambi walked, Sheffield hit into a 6-4-3 double play.

Mirabelli homered in Boston’s half of the fourth, into the Red Sox bullpen. The Red Sox lead increased to 5-1.

The only other run the Yankees scored came in the top of the fifth. With one out, left fielder Hideki Matsui singled and took second on a passed ball, a knuckler. Yankees DH Bernie WiIliams singled to right field, and Matsui scored.

They mounted a mild threat in the top of the sixth, with runners on first and second and one out, but A-Rod tried to steal third and was thrown out, and Sheffield took Wakefield’s next pitch for a called third strike.

The Red Sox restored their four-run lead in the bottom of the sixth, Mirabelli knocking in another run to help his pitcher. With one out, Burks singled off the scoreboard in left. Bellhorn followed by lining a single into right field, sending Burks to third. Mirabelli doubled into the left-field corner, driving in Burks and restoring the four-run margin, now 6-2.

Torre called on Paul Quantrill to relieve with runners on second and third. Quantrill got Pokey Reese to ground out to Jeter at short; Jeter threw out Bellhorn at home plate. Gabe White replaced Quantrill and got Damon to fly out to center field.

Wakefield walked two Yankees in the top of the seventh with one out but escaped without any damage. Boston did not score in its half of the seventh.

Scott Williamson relieved Wakefield to pitch the eighth and struggled after getting the first two outs. Manny Ramírez dropped a routine fly ball in left field and Giambi reached safely. With Sheffield at the plate, Williamson threw a wild pitch, allowing Giambi to go to second. Sheffield walked.

With Posada at the plate, Williamson threw another wild pitch and the baserunners advanced to second and third. Three of his next four pitches were balls and Posada walked to load the bases and bring up Matsui—the 2003 AL Rookie of the Year runner-up after 10 seasons with the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball—as the potential tying run.

Francona called on left-hander Alan Embree to take over from Williamson.7 Matsui had driven in 106 runs in 2003, his first season in American baseball. The lefty-swinging Matsui struck out on three pitches, waving in vain at the third one.

Bullpen control troubles continued in the bottom of the eighth. With one out, Yankee reliever Jorge De Paula gave free passes to Burks, Bellhorn, and Mirabelli, loading the bases. Torre brought in Donovan Osborne to relieve. Reese grounded into a 4-6-3 double play.

Keith Foulke, signed by the Red Sox in January 2004 as a free agent after leading the AL with 43 saves with the Oakland A’s, closed the game with a scoreless ninth. The Red Sox won the game, 6-2.

Wakefield had pitched seven innings and earned his first win of the 2004 season, walking four but allowing only four hits—all singles. His “personal catcher” Mirabelli had reached base four times, albeit once on an error, and cut down A-Rod stealing.

The Red Sox had made three errors themselves, each time putting a runner in scoring position, but the Yankees had failed to capitalize on them.8

The Red Sox had won their first game of the season against the Yankees. After winning again the following day, 5-2, they lost the Sunday game, 7-3, but then swept a three-game set in Yankee Stadium the next weekend by scores of 11-3, 3-2 (in 12 innings), and 3-0.

Wakefield was appreciative of the warm welcome he got from Red Sox fans. This was the beginning of his 10th season with the team, and fans were not going to let one unfortunate pitch to Aaron Boone mar their feelings. “The reception I got was tremendous,” he said. “They’ve opened their arms and embraced me like a second son.”9

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin 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 two-part video of the game posted on YouTube. Thanks to SABR’s John Fredland for suggesting the importance of Doug Mirabelli in this game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200404160.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B04160BOS2004.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4PAOCYA81k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOpyRazI64Y

Notes

1 Wakefield had pitched the 10th, retiring the side in order. He had been 2-0 against the Yankees in the 2003 ALCS, winning Games One and Four. In the 2003 ALCS, the Yankees scored a total of 30 runs and the Red Sox 29.

2 Red Sox manager in 2003 was Grady Little; that he had not been rehired for 2004 was announced 10 days after the final game in 2003. Francona claimed to be not that emotionally drawn into the rivalry, saying, “I still woke up and looked in the mirror and had no hair.” Bob Hohler, “Homer Improvement,” Boston Globe, April 17, 2004: E1.

3 William C. Rhoden, “Red Sox Fans Should Try a Little Love,” New York Times, April 17, 2004: D1. Rhoden advanced the argument that the Yankees would be disoriented by a lack of heckling: “They feed off the negativity.” The Boston newspapers characterized this first meeting of 2004 as one with a “playoff atmosphere.” See, for instance, Andy Nesbitt, “Mirabelli Catches Lightning in Bottle” Boston Globe, April 17, 2004: E5. 

4 “Red Sox Have the Hot Ticket,” New York Times, April 17, 2004: D3. The Red Sox did indeed sell every seat all season long—as they did every one of the next eight seasons, from 2005 through 2012.

5 Tyler Kepner, “Yanks’ Vázquez Also Struggles Against Boston.” New York Times, April 17, 2004: D1. Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe agreed that the ball had hit the padding and bounced back on to the field. Nick Cafardo, “Yankees Couldn’t Find Their Rhythm,” Boston Globe, April 17, 2004: E6. Video of the game available on YouTube is quite clear that the ball should not have been ruled a home run.

6  Rodríguez had grounded out in the first inning, the first time he batted against Boston as a member of the Yankees. Both the Red Sox and A-Rod had largely agreed to a deal in the offseason, but in the deal Rodríguez would have been taking a pay cut of several million dollars—which he was willing to do to play for the Red Sox—but the Players Association stepped in and prevented the deal. He signed instead with the Yankees, for an increase. He was 0-for-4 in this first game against Boston.

7 Dan Shaughnessy, well aware that Embree had been warmed up and could have pitched in Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS, but that Grady Little had asked Pedro Martínez to go back out on the mound, wrote that Francona was “sticking with the WWGD method. When he has to make a move, he thinks, ‘What Would Grady Do?’ then does the opposite.” Dan Shaughnessy, “Carnival Atmosphere Before the Big Show,” Boston Globe, April 17, 2004: E1.  

8 Kepner.

9 Gordon Edes, “Wake Soaks In Fans’ Wave of Appreciation,” Boston Globe, April 17, 2004: E1, E6.

He won 101 games in nine seasons in Philadelphia and another 58 games for the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2000 to 2003, highlighted by a major-league-leading 22 wins in 2001.1 With the Phillies and Diamondbacks, Schilling was 5-1 in postseason play and beat the New York Yankees in Game One of the 2001 World Series, 9-1, also starting Game Four and Game Seven with a composite ERA of 1.69 over the three starts.

After the 2003 season, Schilling’s career came full cycle with a trade to the Red Sox, with whom he signed a new contract after being courted over Thanksgiving by GM Theo Epstein. Joining a staff with Pedro Martínez, Derek Lowe, and Tim Wakefield, wrote William C. Rhoden in the New York Times, gave Boston “on paper, the best rotation in baseball.”2

Schilling’s first start for Boston was a six-inning, one-run outing in Baltimore on April 6, the Red Sox’ first win of 2004. On April 11 he struck out 10 Toronto Blue Jays in eight innings but received a no-decision in Boston’s 12-inning walk-off win.

His third start, a Saturday afternoon home game against the New York Yankees on April 17, followed a 6-2 win on Friday night that brought the Red Sox record to 5-4. Because Schilling had primarily been a reliever with the Orioles and the rest of his career was in the National League, this was only his fifth regular-season start against the Yankees.3

Schilling struck out the first batter he faced, shortstop Derek Jeter. He struck out the second batter he faced, center fielder Bernie Williams. Third up was third baseman Álex Rodríguez, whom the Red Sox had also actively pursued in the 2003-04 offseason before the Yankees acquired him from the Texas Rangers on February 16. A-Rod swung at the first pitch and flied out to Johnny Damon in deep center field.

Veteran right-hander Mike Mussina was the starter for Joe Torre and the Yankees. Mussina had accumulated a 147-81 record in 10 seasons with Baltimore and had added another 52 wins in three seasons with the Yankees through 2003. He won Game Three of the 2003 World Series against the Florida Marlins after losing two ALCS games against the Red Sox.

The only Red Sox baserunner in the bottom of the first was the DH, David Ortiz, who singled up the middle into center field.

The first two Yankees were retired in the second, but left fielder Hideki Matsui drew a walk and catcher Jorge Posadafollowed with a ground-rule double. Schilling then struck out first baseman Tony Clark to extinguish the threat.

Mussina struggled with control in the bottom of the inning, and the Red Sox capitalized to take the lead. After one out, he walked catcher Jason Varitek (on four pitches) and second baseman Mark Bellhorn (on five). Right fielder Gabe Kaplersingled to right, loading the bases.

Shortstop Pokey Reese struck out for the second out, but Damon showed good plate discipline, earning a run-scoring base on balls on 10 pitches. Next up was third baseman Bill Mueller. Mussina’s first pitch hit Mueller on the right elbow, and the Red Sox had another run. Ortiz grounded into a force to end the inning, but Boston had a 2-0 lead.

The Yankees got another ground-rule double in the top of the third, hit by Williams, but it was sandwiched between two groundouts and a strikeout of Rodríguez.

In the bottom of the third, first baseman Kevin Millar reached on a one-out fielding error by Jeter, his second error in as many games. Varitek was safe at first on a bunt single fielded by Mussina. Bellhorn lined a single to right field, loading the bases. Kapler grounded out to third base, unassisted; Kapler slid into first base to beat A-Rod’s throw for a possible double play, and Millar scored, Reese then grounded out to third base, also unassisted. The score was 3-0, Boston.

A walk and a single gave the Yankees two baserunners in the fourth, but Posada hit into an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play. Damon singled in the bottom of the inning, but Mueller popped out foul to third and Ortiz hit into a double play.4Schilling had blanked the Yankees on three hits through four innings. On his second pitch of the fifth, however, Clark hit a leadoff home run into the triangle in the straightaway center-field bleachers.5 The Yankees had their first run. Boston 3, New York 1.

Boston struck back in the bottom of the fifth. On the second pitch Manny Ramírez saw, he hit a leadoff homer over the Wall in left-center. It was career home run number 350 for the 12-year veteran. The Red Sox had reestablished a three-run lead.

After Schilling struck out A-Rod to open the sixth, a hit and two walks loaded the bases with two outs, but Clark grounded out to Millar, Schilling covering the bag at first.

Donovan Osborne took over pitching duties from Mussina and pitched a scoreless sixth, and Yankees second baseman Enrique Wilson singled to start the seventh. Schilling struck out Jeter on nine pitches, pushing his pitch count to 121.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who had managed Schilling from 1997 to 2000 with the Phillies, called on reliever Mike Timlin. Williams walked, but Rodríguez hit into a double play, leaving him 0-for-8 in the first two games of the season against Boston and preserving the 4-1 lead.

Ramírez led off the bottom of the seventh with a single. One out later, he stole second base – one of only two steals for Ramírez in 2004. But Varitek lined out to pitcher Osborne, who threw to second and doubled off Ramírez.

After Timlin set down the Yankees in order in the top of the eighth, Boston added its fifth run. Bellhorn reached on a hit-by-pitch, stole second, and continued to third on catcher Posada’s errant throw. Kapler struck out. Reese hit the ball back to Osborne, who threw home for the tag on Bellhorn. Reese took second on the play. Damon doubled to left field, scoring Reese.

The Yankees came to bat in the ninth facing closer Keith Foulke, yet another offseason acquisition by the Red Sox. Posada hit the ball hard, but it went for a long out to right-center. Foulke struck out Clark. Ruben Sierra pinch-hit for Wilson and singled to center field. With Jeter at the plate, Sierra took second base on defensive indifference. Jeter then singled him in, with a drive to left. It was 5-2, with the Red Sox still on top. After six scoreless appearances, it was the first run Foulke had given up in 2004. The Red Sox remained indifferent against the steal and Jeter took second base. Williams grounded out to Millar at first base, unassisted, ending the game – a win for the team and for Curt Schilling.

Mussina said after the game, “We just didn’t show enough life to really even put ourselves in it. … We just haven’t played our best baseball. We need to do it when we come to Boston and we haven’t done it.”6 Schilling had struck out Jeter three times and A-Rod twice. “We haven’t hit,” Jeter said. “There’s no way to sugarcoat it.”7The Red Sox had been playing without regular right fielder Trot Nixon or shortstop Nomar Garciaparra. “I’ve never seen a lineup like this,” Schilling said after the game, “As deep as this one. They’re going to make you work. … All things aside, we won. We’ve taken the first two games of the series against a good team. And that’s a good thing.”8

Schilling won another 19 games for the Red Sox during the 2004 regular season, finishing with a record of 21-6 to lead the major leagues in wins. He won Game One of the AL Division Series against the Anaheim Angels, rebounded from a three-inning outing in Game One of the ALCS to beat the Yankees in the famed “Bloody Sock” Game Six, and won Game Two of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Three years later, in what turned out to be the final appearances of his 20-season career, Schilling won one game in each of the three postseason series as the Red Sox repeated as World Series champions.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Carl Riechers 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. Brief highlights are available on YouTube.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200404170.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B04170BOS2004.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiZOcjY5_f8

Notes

1 The 22 wins tied him with Matt Morris of the Cardinals.

2 William C. Rhoden, “New Arm Gives Red Sox Some Spine,” New York Times, April 18, 2004: SP1.

3 Schilling’s first start against the Yankees, as a member of the Orioles on September 27, 1988, resulted in a 5-1 loss. With Philadelphia, he had started interleague games against the Yankees during the 1997, 1999, and 2000 seasons.

4 Damon was easily doubled off base on Ortiz’s foul popup to third. He had kept running on the popup, having apparently thought there were already two outs. Bob Hohler, “He Takes Homers in Stride,” Boston Globe, April 18, 2004: D12.

5 The area had been known as “Conig’s Corner,” acknowledging it as a spot where Tony Conigliaro had liked to hit home runs. Gordon Edes used the phrase in his Globe column. Gordon Edes, “He’s Playing Downplaying,” Boston Globe, April 18, 2004: D11.

6 Tyler Kepner, “The Yankees Look Listless in a Clinic by Schilling,” New York Times, April 18, 2004: SP1.

7 Jon Paul Morosi, “Boston’s Schilling Outpitches Mussina,” Washington Post, April 18, 2004: E1.

8 Edes. The Red Sox dropped Sunday’s game, losing 7-3, but won the Monday Patriots Day game, 5-4, thus taking three of four from the visiting Yankees.

Boston manager Terry Francona started Bronson Arroyo while New York’s Joe Torre started Kevin Brown. Arroyo had spent most of 2003 pitching for the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox. Before that, he’d been 9-14 for the Pittsburgh Pirates over his first three major-league seasons. This was his second start of 2004. He’d had a no-decision against Toronto on April 9, then lost while giving up five runs in a disastrous one-third of an inning of relief work against Baltimore on April 15. He came into this game with an ERA of 8.53 in those two outings.

Brown was 39 years old and starting his 18th season in the majors. He’d twice led the National league in ERA and in 1992 had led both leagues with 21 wins.2 Brown had joined New York in a December 2003 trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers. This was his fourth start for the Yankees and he was 3-0 coming into the game, with a skimpy 1.29 ERA.

With several Red Sox recovering from injuries, Francona fielded an unconventional lineup against the undefeated Yankees ace. As the Boston Globe’s Bob Hohler put it, the Red Sox were starting “their third-string first baseman (David McCarty), their third-string second baseman (César Crespo), their backup shortstop (Pokey Reese), their reserve right-fielder (Gabe Kapler), and the projected sixth-starter in their five-man rotation (Bronson Arroyo).”3

Neither team scored in the first inning, though each had one base hit.

Right fielder Gary Sheffield singled up the middle to kick off the Yankees second. Left fielder Hideki Matsui walked on eight pitches. First baseman Travis Lee doubled to left and both runners scored. Lee made it to third on a throwing error by shortstop Reese. Catcher John Flaherty – who’d broken in to the majors with Boston in 1992 and 1993 – singled to right field and scored Lee. New York was out to a 3-0 lead. A sacrifice, hit-by-pitch, and Bernie Williams grounding into a double play ended the inning.

Leading off the third for the Red Sox was catcher Jason Varitek. He singled to center. Two batters later, he was on second with two outs after McCarty struck out and second baseman Crespo grounded to Brown, who threw to first while Varitek took second. Kapler (who had been acquired from the Rockies near the end of June 2003) singled to left, scoring Varitek with Boston’s first run of the game.4 Reese singled, too, but center fielder Johnny Damon flied out to center for the third out.

With one out in the top of the third, DH Jason Giambi reestablished the Yankees’ three-run lead with a home run to right field off Arroyo. It was 4-1, Yankees, but it proved to be the last run they scored in the game.

Brown gave up a leadoff single to third baseman Bill Mueller to lead off the Boston third, but then retired the next three batters and all three he faced in the fourth. The Yankees put two runners on base in the fourth but did not score. In the fifth they once again got two on but Travis Lee grounded into an inning-ending double play.

In the bottom of the fifth, after two outs, Mueller doubled to center and DH David Ortiz singled him home with a drive of his own to center field. It was 4-2, New York.

Shortstop Derek Jeter reached first in the sixth on the third Red Sox error of the game, the second by Mueller. Jeter never got past first base, though.

Varitek led off the bottom of the sixth with a home run to right field. That cut the Yankees’ lead to 4-3.

After Arroyo struck out Álex Rodríguez, the first batter up in the seventh, Francona called on Alan Embree, ending Arroyo’s day at 99 pitches. Embree retired Giambi on a groundball to shortstop and Sheffield on a fly ball to center. After the game, Arroyo received praise from GM Theo Epstein: “Bronson didn’t really have good stuff at all early. He looked a little bit lost out there, but he kept battling and battling until he completely found it.”5

After Reese singled to start off the Boston seventh, Yankees manager Torre turned to his bullpen and brought in Gabe White to try to preserve the lead (and a win) for Brown, who had thrown 105 pitches. It didn’t work. Damon swung at the first pitch, singled to right, and the Red Sox had runners on first and second with nobody out. White struck out Mueller, but Ortiz’s mistake hit to third base, glancing off the bat on an attempted check swing, scored Reese with the tying run. Rodríguez picked up an error throwing the ball into center field and Damon wound up on third base. Tom Gordon relieved White. Manny Ramírez – having a rough day – hit into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play, but the Red Sox had tied the game, 4-4.

Matsui led off the New York eighth with a single. Embree struck out Lee. Francona called on Mike Timlin to take over in relief to face Jorge Posada, pinch-hitting for Flaherty.6 Timlin struck out Posada. Ruben Sierra pinch-hit for second baseman Enrique Wilson and grounded out to McCarty at first base, who made the play unassisted.7

Posada took over catching duties; Miguel Cairo came in to play second base. Batting in the bottom of the eighth in the still-tied game, Varitek was struck out by Gordon. McCarty doubled to left field, breaking his 0-for-9 start to the season. Most agreed the ball could have been caught but was misplayed by Matsui, who appeared to struggle with the sun. “It’s better to be lucky than good any day,” McCarty quipped afterward.8

Crespo grounded out, second to first, with McCarty taking third base. Kapler, who had singled in the first Red Sox run, now singled in theirfifth – a go-ahead run – with a line drive to center on which McCarty easily scored. Reese struck out, but the Red Sox had the lead, 5-4, for the first time in the game.

Francona turned to his closer, Keith Foulke. The season was still young, but Foulke picked up his third save, striking out Jeter, getting Bernie Williams to fly out to left (Ramírez made the catch while banging hard into the wall), and then – after Álex Rodríguez singled to left (ending what had been an 0-for-16 stretch in this four-game series) – striking out Giambi, caught looking.

The atmosphere for the four-game set had been keyed up, and particularly this holiday finale – despite not being a Friday night alcohol-fueled fest. “The whole park was electric,” Kapler said. “There were fights breaking out all over the place, like usual, cops escorting fans out of the park, which is always cool. It shows the passion.”9

The win went to Mike Timlin, his first of the 2004 season. Kapler had the hit that put Boston in the lead, something he reprised on September 7 with a two-run homer in Oakland.

The Red Sox had taken three of four from New York. The New York Times’s Tyler Kepner called it of a “divine comedy of errors” – though there had in fact been only one error charged to the Yankees. Matsui had misplayed McCarty’s fly ball in the eighth and Giambi had made the final out without once swinging at any of the four pitches he saw. Kepner wrote that the “overriding symbol of the Yankees’ futility here, and of their sputtering start, was Alex Rodríguez[,]” who had been 1-for-17 with six strikeouts.10

The two teams met again just four days later and the Red Sox swept all three games that weekend at Yankee Stadium.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Carl Riechers 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 video highlights of the game at YouTube.com:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200404190.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B04190BOS2004.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGvkWh152ww

Notes

1 On Friday night Boston won, 6-2, as Tim Wakefield recorded his first win of the season. On Saturday afternoon Curt Schilling upped his record with a 5-2 win. On Sunday afternoon the Yankees prevailed, 7-3.

2 He was tied with Detroit’s Jack Morris with 21 wins.

3 Bob Hohler, “Red Sox Win More Than a Bit Exciting,” Boston Globe, April 20, 2004: D1. First baseman Ortiz was the DH for the day, to provide a bit of rest. Due to injuries, neither shortstop Nomar Garciaparra nor right fielder Trot Nixon played in a game before June. Second baseman Mark Bellhorn was out with a stiff right elbow from the day before.

4 Gabe Kapler had played in 68 games in 2003, in both right field and left field, batting .291 and driving in 23 runs. In 2004 he played in 136 games, 127 of them in right field, driving in 33 runs and hitting .272.

5 Hohler.

6 Mike Timlin had reupped with the Red Sox as a free agent in mid-November of 2003. A veteran of 12 years in the majors, he had been a member of the World Series champion Toronto Blue Jays in 1992 and 1993. He had relieved in 72 games for Boston in 2003. In 2004 he worked in 76 games and pitched in 11 of Boston’s 14 postseason games.

7 Timlin’s wife, Dawn, was running in the Boston Marathon, which is in its final mile as it passes with two blocks of the ballpark. She finished in 4 hours and 29 minutes.

8 Hohler.

9 Thomas Boswell, “Smoke Fuels Fenway Heat,” Washington Post, April 20, 2004: D1. The smoke referred to was from a fire in the area that produced back smoke and an “end-of-the world darkness” in the outfield.

10 Tyler Kepner, “Act I, Game IV: Yanks’ Divine Comedy of Errors,” New York Times, April 20, 2004: D1. Jack Curry presented background on A-Rod’s 2004 season to date, noting that Rodríguez was 8-for-50 so far (.160). See Jack Curry, “Rodriguez Is Awaiting That Big Hit,” New York Times, April 20, 2004: D1. By year’s end, A-Rod had 36 homers and 106 runs batted in.

Most games are noted for what did happen during the game rather than what did not. This game stands out because so many Boston baserunners were left stranded in scoring position. As Tyler Kepner wrote in the New York Times, “No team had been as futile in the clutch in more than 25 years, but the Yankees could not take advantage. They were nearly as bad.”1

Three sacrifice flies accounted for all the Red Sox runs. The result was their fifth win over the Yankees in their first six meetings of 2004.

It was a Saturday afternoon game before a sold-out crowd of 55,195 at Yankee Stadium. The season was young. With a record of 10-6, Boston was in second place in the American League East, a half-game behind Baltimore. The 8-9 Yankees were three games behind the Orioles.

Just six months earlier, the Yankees had beaten the Red Sox in Game Seven of the 2003 American League Championship Series on Aaron Boone’s home run in the bottom of the 11th.2 It was New York’s sixth AL pennant in eight seasons; Boston’s world championship drought had reached 85 seasons.

Six months after this April 2004 game, the Red Sox again faced the Yankees in the ALCS. This time, they overcame a three-games-to-none deficit to win an improbable pennant. No baseball team had ever overcome such a deficit. Four more wins over the St. Louis Cardinals produced their first World Series title since 1918.

But all of that was unwritten when the Red Sox visited Yankee Stadium in April 2004. Boston had taken three of four games from the Yankees at Fenway Park a weekend earlier and then won the series opener, 11-2, on Friday night with a four-homer barrage.

The starters on Saturday were Kevin Brown for New York and Bronson Arroyo for Boston. The 39-year-old Brown had come to the Yankees in a December 2003 trade after six seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers. A waiver claim and late-season call-up in 2003, the 27-year-old Arroyo had joined Boston’s rotation at the beginning of the 2004 season.

The Red Sox scored in the first without the benefit of a hit. Leadoff batter Johnny Damon walked on five pitches and Bill Mueller on six, taking Brown’s first 11 pitches without swinging. In Boston’s first opportunity of the game with a runner in scoring position, first baseman David Ortiz grounded to his counterpart Travis Lee, who threw to Brown covering first, as the runners advanced. DH Manny Ramirez hit a fly ball to center field; Damon tagged and scored. Catcher Jason Varitek grounded out, short to first. So far, the Red Sox were hitless in three plate appearances with runners in scoring position but led, 1-0.

Shortstop Derek Jeter walked to lead off the bottom of the first but was erased trying to steal second as left fielder Hideki Matsui struck out looking. Alex Rodriguez hit to Arroyo, who threw to Ortiz for the third out.

Right fielder Kevin Millar led off Boston’s second inning with a tapper back to Brown for a base hit and advanced to second when Brown threw the ball away. Next up was second baseman Mark Bellhorn, who grounded to first baseman Lee; when Brown took the feed at first, he dropped the ball for his second error of the inning, and Millar moved to third.

Brown then hit left fielder Gabe Kapler with a pitch, loading the bases with nobody out. Shortstop Pokey Reese flied out to center, Millar scoring on the sacrifice fly. The next two batters made outs. At this point, eight Boston batters had come to the plate with runners in scoring position. None of them had a base hit, but two sacrifice flies had produced a pair of runs.   

Arroyo faced three batters in the second, striking out two—both looking—and getting a groundout.  

In the top of the third, Ortiz led off with a double to center and held at second on Ramirez’s groundout to Brown. Varitek drew a base on balls. Millar grounded out, but Ortiz and Varitek moved up to second and third. Bellhorn’s fly ball to deep right-center was the third out, making him the 12th Red Sox batter with runners in scoring position but no hits. Arroyo pitched around a walk in the bottom of the inning.

Brown retired the Red Sox in order in the fourth. With one out in the Yankees half of the inning, Alex Rodriguez hit a solo home run, making it Boston 2, New York 1.3 It was the only hit the Yankees got in the first six innings.

Mueller led off the Red Sox fifth with a double to right field. The next three batters made outs. For those keeping track, the Red Sox had now seen 15 batters come to the plate with one or more runners in scoring position. Those batters were now 0-for-11 with a walk, a hit by pitch, and two sacrifice flies.

No runners reached base for the Yankees in the bottom of the fifth or for either team in the sixth.

In the top of the seventh, Reese singled, and Mueller’s one-out walk gave Boston another runner in scoring position. Neither Ortiz nor Ramirez could advance the runners, keeping the Red Sox lead at one run.

With Arroyo still on the mound in the seventh, the Yankees tied the game when the first three batters—A-Rod, Jason Giambi, and Gary Sheffield—all singled. Sheffield’s single drove in Rodriguez. Scott Williamson relieved Arroyo and got out of the inning without the ball leaving the infield. The three singles were the Yankees’ second, third, and fourth base hits—and, as it turned out, the last ones they got in the 12-inning game.

Tom Gordon relieved Brown and struck out the three Boston batters he faced in the top of the eighth.

Alan Embree replaced Williamson. The Yankees went down in order in the eighth.

Kapler walked to lead off the top of the ninth and was sacrificed to second by Reese. There, however, he languished, as two more batters went hitless with a runner in scoring position. Through nine innings, the Red Sox’ total of hitless plate appearances was 19.

The Yankees started the same in the ninth, with a walk and a sacrifice, but Embree held them scoreless.

Yankees closer Mariano Rivera entered the tie game in the 10th. Varitek reached second with two outs by hitting into a force after Ramirez’s single, then stealing second, but Millar—the 20th Boston batter with runners in scoring position—hit a foul popup to catcher Jorge Posada.

Keith Foulke relieved Embree. An error and a sacrifice were followed by a groundout and two walks, one intentional, loading the bases, but pinch-hitter Ruben Sierra grounded into a force play.

In Rivera’s second inning, the 11th, the Red Sox loaded the bases with one out on two walks and a hit-by-pitch, but Rivera retired Mueller on a popup and fanned Ortiz to strand them. Twenty-four Red Sox had batted with runners in scoring position without getting a hit.

Foulke hit Sheffield starting the 11th but after two fly outs, Sheffield was caught stealing.

After nine scoreless innings in a row and numerous missed opportunities, the Red Sox finally broke through in the 12th off New York’s fifth pitcher, Paul Quantrill. Ramirez doubled hard off the wall in right-center. He took third on a groundout, and Bellhorn’s fly ball to deep center field two batters later—Boston’s 26th and final batter with at least one runner in scoring position—brought him home, again one not produced by a base hit. The Red Sox had a 3-2 lead.

Mike Timlin took over for Foulke in the bottom of the inning and struck out Bernie Williams and Miguel Cairo. Jeter grounded out, third to first, and the game was over. Timlin appeared in 76 games for Boston in 2004, more than any other pitcher on the staff. He was mostly a late-inning reliever; the save he earned in this game was his only save of the season.

The Red Sox had taken five of their first six games against New York. Yankees manager Joe Torre said, “Things are really clicking for them right now. When things are clicking for you, things go your way.”4

The way the Red Sox had won was analogous, wrote Bob Hohler in the Boston Globe, perhaps stretching a point, to winning a football game with making a first down or a basketball game without an assist.5 “It’s frustrating during the course of a game,” said Damon, “But right now we don’t give a darn about that stat. We won.”6

All in all, 26 Red Sox batters had come to the plate with a runner in scoring position. Not one of them got a base hit. Two walked, two were hit by pitches, one reached on an error, and 21 made outs—but three of those outs were on sacrifice flies and they made all the difference.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin 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.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA200404240.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B04240NYA2004.htm

Notes

1 Tyler Kepner, “Yankees Continue to Go Meekly,” New York Times, April 25, 2004: SP1.

2 The Yankees then lost the World Series to the Florida Marlins in six games.

3 It was the first home run he ever hit at Yankee Stadium after becoming a member of the Yankees.

4 Dan Graziano, “Bosox Continue Mastery of Yanks,” Staten Island Advance, April 25, 2004: S1.

5 Bob Hohler, “Scratch Test for Red Sox,” Boston Globe, April 25, 2004: 41. Both Kepner and Hohler credited Stats Inc. with the information that the last time a team had gone 0-for-19 with runners in scoring position was June 11, 1977, the Pirates losing at home to San Diego, 4-1, in a game during which each team had 10 hits.

6 Hohler.

Red Sox fans were pleased to see their team win three out of four from the Yankees from April 16 to 19 at Fenway Park. The Red Sox had then gone to Toronto and taken two of three from the Blue Jays. They arrived at Yankee Stadium on April 23 with a record of 9-6, in second place but behind the 9-5 Baltimore Orioles and a game and a half ahead of the 8-8 Yankees in the AL East. While the Red Sox were in Toronto, the Yankees had taken two of three from the White Sox in Chicago.

In the first of three scheduled games in New York, the Red Sox won on Friday, April 23, 11-2, scoring five runs off starter José Contreras to go ahead to stay. Derek Lowe got the win for Boston. Four Red Sox batters homered in the game.

The Saturday afternoon game was a close one, running 12 innings and just over four hours. The Red Sox went hitless in 19 at-bats with runners in scoring position but managed three sacrifice flies. The third run-scoring fly ball, by third baseman Mark Bellhorn, drove in Manny Ramírez. with the go-ahead run in the 12th. Mike Timlin, Boston’s fifth pitcher of the game, followed winning pitcher Keith Foulke’s two scoreless innings with a perfect bottom of the 12th to close out the 3-2 win.

Yankees manager Joe Torre certainly didn’t want to lose the Sunday afternoon game, which would make it a sweep for the Red Sox and six out of seven. He changed the team’s lineup for the 15th game in a row.1 Javier Vázquez, pitching on just three days’ rest, was New York’s starter. He had lost to Tim Wakefield at Fenway Park on April 16.

Pedro Martínez had the start for the Red Sox. It was Martínez’s first appearance against the Yankees since Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS. In that game, also played at Yankee Stadium, Martínez and the Red Sox had a lead after seven innings. It appeared that the Red Sox were going to the bullpen, but manager Grady Little sent the three-time Cy Young Award winner back out to the mound in the eighth, with disastrous (and pennant-losing) results.2

The Red Sox were playing without three of their regular starters: Shortstop Nomar Garciaparra and right fielder Trot Nixon were out with injuries, and the reigning AL batting champion, third baseman Bill Mueller, was also out, given a day off. Ellis Burks, who had started a handful of games at designated hitter in his return to Boston, was about to go on the disabled list with torn knee cartilage.

Both pitchers performed exceptionally well. Vázquez worked six innings, allowing just four base hits and walking only one batter. Martínez worked seven innings, likewise allowing just four hits and walking one. There were two errors in the game – both by the Yankees – but they had no influence on the scoring.

DH David Ortiz dropped a single into center off Vázquez in the first but none of the other three batters in that inning got the ball out of the infield – there was a foul popup to catcher Jorge Posada and two strikeouts. In the second, Vázquez hit leadoff batter Kevin Millar, who was then erased on a strike-’em-out, throw-’em-out double play with Jason Varitek batting. First baseman Dave McCarty struck out to end the inning. In the Boston third, Vázquez retired the side in order on a bunt handled by Posada plus two K’s.

In the meantime, Martínez had no difficulty with the Yankees. The only batter to reach base in the first three innings was right fielder Gary Sheffield on a single to center in the second. In the top of the fourth, Vázquez walked Bellhorn on five pitches. After David Ortiz struck out looking, left fielder Manny Ramírez homered to left-center field, the ball landing in the netting above the retired numbers of Yankees greats in straightaway left-center. It was 2-0, Red Sox. Millar lined out and Varitek flied out to deep center.

With one out in the bottom of the fourth, Álex Rodríguez singled – and then stole second. But Jason Giambi flied out and Sheffield struck out.

After the Red Sox batted in the fifth, Posada reached on a 10-pitch walk. Left fielder Hideki Matsui struck out, but DH Rubén Sierra doubled to right. With runners on second and third and just the one out, second baseman Enrique Wilson – 10-for-20 lifetime against Martínez before this game – popped up to Pokey Reese at short and Pedro struck out Derek Jeter, who had come into the game riding an 0-for-21 slump.

The Red Sox got runners on first and third in the top of the sixth, but again Millar and Varitek made unproductive outs. Álex Rodríguez doubled in the Yankees sixth but got no farther than third base.

Paul Quantrill relieved Vázquez to start the seventh. He faced three Boston batters and retired all three.

Martínez did the same when the Yankees came to bat. In seven innings, he’d allowed four hits and walked one. He struck out seven. The Yankees were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.

When Martínez returned to the dugout, with seven innings completed and a 2-0 lead, “David Ortiz embraced his countryman for a good 10 seconds.”3 Unlike Game Seven of the ALCS, the Red Sox were going to the bullpen to preserve the lead.

“The Sox led the Yankees after seven in Yankee Stadium and there’s no way Pedro was going back out to start the night,” noted the Boston Globe. “Not this time.”4

Gabe White took over pitching for New York in the eighth inning. Johnny Damon walked but White retired the next two on fly balls. Tom Gordon was called on to pitch to Manny Ramírez. He threw a wild pitch and Damon took second base. It was decided to walk Ramírez. It took seven pitches, but Gordon struck out Millar.

Boston manager Terry Francona called on Scott Williamson to relieve Martínez in the eighth. A day earlier, Williamson had pitched a scoreless inning in Boston’s 12-inning win. This time out, he opened by getting a foul popup from Travis Lee, pinch-hitting for Wilson. Jeter struck out on three pitches. Bernie Williams grounded out to first base, unassisted.

It was still 2-0, Boston. Wanting to keep it that close, Torre had Mariano Rivera relieve in the ninth. With one out, Rivera walked McCarty but none of the other three Boston batters did anything – groundout, strikeout, groundout.

Francona stuck with Williamson to pitch the ninth. A-Rod grounded out, third to first. Giambi grounded out, short to first. Sheffield struck out swinging.

The Red Sox had swept the three-game set at Yankee Stadium. They had taken six of the seven April games they played against their New York nemesis. The New York Times said the Red Sox weren’t so much rivals as they were “bystanders to a roadside wreck.”5

In the season’s first month, through the 25th, the Red Sox were in first place in the AL East at 12-6. The Yankees were third at 8-11.

Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy quipped that “Citizens of Red Sox Nation – and many were here over the weekend – already are calculating the Sox’ magic number and planning Yankee Elimination Day parties.”6

There were plenty of boos for Derek Jeter, but no one was writing off him or the Yankees. It was way too early for anything like that. Ramírez said, “The objective here [on the Red Sox] is to win the World Series, not to beat the Yankees. They’re the ones who got the rings. We don’t got nothing.”7

The two teams didn’t meet again until June 29 and 30 and July 1, again in New York. The Yankees swept those three games. Boston took two out of three at Fenway Park later in July, one of them an 11-10 walk-off.

There were two more three-game sets. New York won two of three at the Stadium on September 17-19, and Boston won two of three at Fenway on September 24-26. By the end of the 2004 regular season, the Red Sox had won 11 head-to-head games and the Yankees had won eight.

The two teams faced each other in the American League Championship Series again in 2004. The Yankees won the first three games, each team to that point having won 11 games against the other. Historians rate what happened next as worthy of note.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Carl Riechers 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.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA200404250.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B04250NYA2004.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlAFOCnGA9Y

Notes

1 Tyler Kepner, “Yankees Bat .152 and Lose 3 Straight,” New York Times, April 26, 2004: D1.

2 Yankees fans weren’t above a little taunting: “Yankees fans draped images of Grady Little from the upper deck to mark starter Javier Vazquez’s strikeouts.” Bob Hohler, “Very Few Bumps in the Road,” Boston Globe, April 26, 2004: D1.

3 Dan Shaughnessy, “All Bases covered in Making Case,” Boston Globe, April 26, 2004: D5.

4 Bob Hohler, “Sweet Sweep for Sox,” Boston Globe, April 26, 2004: D5.

5 Kepner.

6 Shaughnessy, D1.

7 Ronald Blum (Associated Press), “Red Sox Keep the Heat on Listless Yankees,” Quincy (Massachusetts) Patriot Ledger, April 26, 2004: 26. Jack Curry’s column placed focus on the game as Martínez’s follow-up to Game Six of the 2003 ACLS. Red Sox players preferred to steer clear of any such emphasis. Johnny Damon simply said, “This was the best I’ve seen Pedro pitch since I put on a uniform here.” Jack Curry, “Martinez Smartly Puts Debacle of October Behind Hm,” New York Times, April 26, 2004: D7.

The Red Sox were hosting former Boston catcher Tony Peña – now in his third season as a big-league manager – and the Kansas City Royals at Fenway Park on May 7. Starting the Friday night game for Boston was knuckleballer Tim Wakefield.

The Royals were last in the AL Central, but they went ahead against Wakefield in the top of the first.

The first Royals run resulted from on a leadoff single by shortstop Ángel Berroa, who took second on a groundout to short, stole third, and scored on another groundout to short.

Left-hander Jeremy Affeldt retired the Red Sox in order on 12 pitches in the first.

Wakefield got three more groundouts in the second. The Red Sox got a single and a walk in their half, but no runs.

Kansas City scored another run in the top of the third. Alternating outs and singles, the Royals had runners on first and third with two outs. Wakefield faked a pickoff to third, then threw to first, trapping Carlos Beltrán off the bag.1 Beltrán – who stole 42 bases in 45 attempts in 2004 – was caught in a rundown but escaped when second baseman Mark Bellhorn missed the throw from first. “I had my glove positioned in the wrong way,” Bellhorn said later.2 The error allowed KC’s Desi Relaford to score from third base for a 2-0 lead.

The Red Sox got two runs in their half of the third, evening the score at 2-2. With one out, center fielder Johnny Damon homered over the Royals bullpen in right field. Bellhorn singled into right field. DH David Ortiz struck out on three pitches. Left fielder Manny Ramírez singled to left, then Kevin Millar doubled into the left-field corner and knocked in Bellhorn.

Neither team scored in the fourth, but the Royals broke the tie with four runs in the top of the fifth. Berroa hit another leadoff single. After Beltrán flied out, DH Mike Sweeney singled and so did right fielder Juan González, driving in Berroa. Left fielder Matt Stairs doubled to right, and Sweeney scored Kansas City’s fourth run of the game.

When third baseman Bill Mueller grabbed Royals second baseman Joe Randa’s bouncer to third and threw wildly to first, two more runs scored on the infield single and error. It was 6-2, Royals. The Red Sox got a man on in the fifth, but he never got past first. Neither team scored in the sixth or seventh. Wakefield hit Stairs with a pitch in the seventh but otherwise didn’t let another Royal on base. Manager Terry Francona left the 37-year-old knuckleballer in the game through eight innings and 114 pitches.

Trailing by four runs, the Red Sox began to rally against Affeldt in the eighth. Manny Ramírez led off with a single. After Millar flied out, right fielder Gabe Kapler hit a high fly ball to left. Stairs appeared to misjudge it in the wind. He dived for the ball, but it dropped in for a single, and Ramírez stopped at second.

Both Ramirez and Kapler were able to come around and score on catcher Doug Mirabelli’s single to left and an error on the throw in by Stairs. Jason Grimsley relieved Affeldt and retired Mueller and pinch-hitter Brian Daubach, but the score was now Royals 6, Red Sox 4.

Francona and pitching coach Dave Wallace conferred, and Mike Timlin took over for Wakefield in the top of the ninth. Timlin struck out shortstop Berroa, got Beltrán to ground out to Millar at first, the pitcher taking the toss, and then saw Sweeney fly out to center field.

Boston was down to its final at-bats, and Mike MacDougal took over pitching for Kansas City. After a couple of fans ran on the field, Damon worked a walk on six pitches, then scampered to second on a passed ball. On a 1-and-1 pitch, Mark Bellhorn tied the game with his third homer of the season, several rows deep into the right-field grandstand.

The sold-out crowd was – by far, most of them – thrilled, and hoping DH David Ortiz would end it with one swing of the bat. But Ortiz struck out, swinging, on just three pitches for the second time in the game.

Manny Ramírez walked to put the go-ahead run on first. Peña summoned Scott Sullivan in hopes of getting two outs to send the game to extra innings. Sullivan got the first one, as Millar hit a high popup to Relaford, the second baseman, in right field.

Francona sent up Jason Varitek, Boston’s regular starting catcher, to pinch-hit for Kapler. Swinging at the very first pitch, Varitek doubled to into the corner in right field. Ramírez summoned such speed as he had and ran all the way from first to score the winning run, the throw home arriving just a moment late as Ramírez scored without sliding.3

Asked why he hadn’t slid, Ramírez said, “I didn’t see the throw. I was watching [Royals catcher Benito Santiago]. He wasn’t moving like there was a throw.”4 It was very close play, and the deke might well have worked if right fielder González had been faster to get to the ball.

“What a job by Manny,” Varitek said. “All I did was step up there and get a hit. I hit a changeup and Manny scored. It’s just what this team believes it can do.”5

The Red Sox won 7-6, giving them a two-game edge in the standings when the Seattle Mariners beat the Yankees that evening. It was still early May, though, and there were 133 games left on the schedule.

That said, the Red Sox had had significant contributions by Bellhorn and Millar and Mirabelli as well as the homer by Damon and the pinch-hit by Varitek. Mike Timlin got the win.

It was a game in which, Mirabelli said afterward, “for the whole day you seemed to be going through the motions. We had no rhythm. All of a sudden … BAM!”6

The Royals had dropped to 2-13 on the road. Beltrán said, “This was just unbelievable. This is the first time that I feel that it’s just impossible for us to win ballgames. I was 100 percent sure that we were going to win this ballgame.”7

For his part, Bellhorn said, “We never think that the game is over. We know somebody is going to step up and it’s not always one guy. It’s the whole team.”8

It was the second walk-off win of the 2004 Red Sox season. The first had been on April 11 against the Toronto Blue Jays, that one on David Ortiz’s home run in the 12th inning. During 2004 the Red Sox had nine regular-season walk-off wins, six of them in extra innings. Two came in back-to-back games on September 21 and 22.9

Three more walk-offs followed in the 2004 postseason. Ortiz was 0-for-5 with three strikeouts in this early May game against the Royals, but he drove in the winning runs in all three postseason walk-offs. Most memorable were his game-winners on back-to-back nights in mid-October, walking off Game Four and Game Five of the ALCS and igniting Boston’s history-making comeback over the Yankees.

And to think that when the Red Sox had acquired him, the team was accused of “shopping at Walmart.”10

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Carl Riechers 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 YouTube.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200405070.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B05070BOS2004.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA52K9kWqH4

Notes

1 A rule change for the 2013 season made it a balk to fake a pickoff throw to third, but it was permitted at the time of this game. Tyler Kepner, “A Trick’s Farewell: Rule Change Eliminates a Fake Pickoff,” New York Times, January 26, 2013: D1, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/sports/baseball/baseball-rule-change-eliminates-a-fake-pickoff-by-pitcher.html.

2 Nick Cafardo, “Tek-nical Knockout,” Boston Globe, May 7, 2004: E5.

3 “We needed a break for the ball not to kick (off the wall),” said manager Terry Francona. “It kind of hugged the wall. Manny was thinking score right from the jump.” Bob Dutton, “KC at a Loss, Again – Late Meltdown in Boston Is Called ‘Unbelievable.’” Kansas City Star, May 8, 2004: D1.

4 Cafardo.

5 Cafardo.

6 Mike Fine, “Home Cookin’ Lifts Sox,” Quincy (Massachusetts) Patriot Ledger, May 8, 2004: 51.

7 Dutton.

8 Cafardo.

9 The Red Sox also lost nine walk-off road games in 2004.

10 Gordon Edes, “Sox Officially Bring in Ortiz,” Boston Globe, January 23, 2003: E3. The sentiment Edes expressed was nearly universal at the time – that new Red Sox GM Theo Epstein was looking for bargains and not going after the best players available at the time.

They had played a close game the night before, the Red Sox coming from behind with two runs in the eighth and three in the ninth to win, 7-6.

The starting pitchers on May 8 were veteran right-hander Curt Schilling for Boston and 22-year-old lefty Jimmy Gobble for the Royals. As with every game throughout the 2004 season, the park was sold out. The attendance for this game was 34,929.

Neither team got a base hit in the first or second inning, though Boston’s Johnny Damon reached on an error in the first and Jason Varitek on a base on balls in the second.

Kansas City stirred against Schilling in the third, as first baseman Ken Harvey led off with a single and catcher Benito Santiago – who had debuted in the major leagues in 1986, two seasons before Schilling – followed with another single. Second baseman Desi Relaford sacrificed them to second and third, but Schilling got a shallow fly ball and a pop fly to shortstop to end the threat.

The Red Sox scored the first run of the game in the bottom of the third with a one-out single to right-center by Johnny Damon followed by a double to left by second baseman Mark Bellhorn, scoring the speedy Damon.

In the top of the fifth, Santiago hit a solo home run into the Green Monster seats atop the left-field wall, tying the score, 1-1.

Red Sox shortstop Pokey Reese batted with one out in the bottom of the fifth. An outstanding defender and baserunner who had claimed Gold Gloves at second base with the Cincinnati Reds in 1999 and 2000, the 31-year-old Reese had signed with the Red Sox in December 2003 after thumb and hamstring injuries marred his two-year stay with the Pittsburgh Pirates.1

Against Gobble, Reese hit a line drive to right field. As Bob Ryan wrote in the Boston Globe, “The ball bounded off the low-lying angled fence and began an excursion toward the Red Sox bullpen, or thereabouts.”2

Globe colleague Nick Cafardo picked up the story: “It was a shot down the right-field line that hugged the railing. The fans didn’t touch it, and the ball darted past [Royals right fielder] Juan Gonzalez. [Gonzalez] finally retrieved it, but the relay was too late to beat the racing Reese, whose heart was beating rapidly as he slid into home.”3

It turned out to be the run that put Boston ahead to stay. Schilling buckled down and retired the side in order in the sixth and again in the seventh. He gave up only one more hit in the remainder of the game – a two-out single to center field by shortstop Angel Berroa in the top of the eighth.

The Red Sox padded their one-run lead by adding five more runs in the sixth. Gobble gave up hits to the first four batters he faced. The first was a double to center field by designated hitter Kevin Millar. Left fielder Manny Ramirez doubled down the line in left, driving in Millar.

First-pitch swinging, catcher Jason Varitek singled to left, scoring Ramirez. On Gobble’s first pitch to third baseman Bill Mueller, Varitek stole second base, his second steal of the game. On the next pitch, Mueller singled to center and Varitek scored.

Varitek, whose 10 stolen bases in 2004 were nearly half the 25 he swiped over a 15-season career, minimized any meaning of his two-steal game: “It was an aberration,” he said.4

Peña called in a relief pitcher, Jason Grimsley, who got first baseman Dave McCarty to ground out, second to first. Mueller took second on the play but was thrown out trying to advance on right fielder Gabe Kapler’s grounder to short.

Reese batted with two outs and Kapler on first. He drove Grimsley’s pitch over the fence in left field and into the Monster seats for his second home run of the game and a 7-1 Red Sox lead.

The blast earned Reese a curtain call. The Kansas City Star’s Bob Dutton wrote, “It was, no surprise, the first two-homer game of Reese’s career since he entered the game with just 41 over his previous 2,669 at-bats covering 785 major-league games.”

“This is the first time for [a curtain call], too,” Reese said. “[Kevin] Millar said, ‘If they start chanting your name, go out there.’”5

“I’m a speed guy,” Reese said afterward. “It’s good for me to have at least one inside-the-park job.”6

Reese was prized for his fielding, not his power. Millar offered: “He’s the best defensive player I’ve ever played with.”7

After Damon singled, Shawn Camp relieved Grimsley and got the third out by striking out Bellhorn on three pitches.

Camp retired the side in order in the bottom of the seventh. In the eighth, though, the Red Sox got two more runs when new Royals pitcher Nate Field walked the leadoff batter, Mueller, and McCarty hit a home run to right field.

Schilling did throw a complete game, a 9-1 win on five hits. He walked no one and struck out eight. “It was a cool day, and I felt strong,” Schilling said. “You know, that’s the situation I’ve been thinking about for five or six months – being on the mound at Fenway Park in the ninth inning with the lead and two outs. I wanted to finish this one.”8

Had he reassured his manager that he was feeling strong enough to work the full nine innings? Francona answered the question: “Oh, about 10 times – so did Wally [pitching coach Dave Wallace]. Everybody thought it was the right thing. He deserved to be in there.”9

It was the first complete game of the season for a Red Sox pitcher; for Schilling, it was the 80th of his career. His record improved to 4-2 in his first season with the Red Sox. He finished 2004 with 21 wins (leading both leagues) against 6 losses. He finished second in the Cy Young Award voting – for the third time in four years. Johan Santana was first (20-6, with an ERA of 2.61 to Schilling’s 3.26.)

There were heroics to come for Schilling in the postseason, though he suffered one mauling at the hands of the Yankees in Game One of the League Championship Series. Injured ankle repaired, with blood visibly seeping onto his sock, he held them to one run in seven innings in Game Six and won that game as well as Game Two of the World Series against St. Louis, allowing just one unearned run in six innings.

After the May 8 game, there was a lot of baseball yet to play before the Red Sox reached the postseason. Pokey Reese hit three home runs all season long, two of them in this one game.

Reese played in 96 regular-season games in 2004, starting regularly at shortstop from the beginning of the season until Nomar Garciaparra returned in June from an Achilles tendon injury. Reese contributed his trademark stellar defense to the Red Sox’ postseason push; Baseball-Reference.com credited him with 2.0 Defensive Wins Above Replacement, fifth best in the AL.

He finished 2004 by playing in 10 postseason games, mostly as a defensive replacement, and earning a World Series ring. It was Reese’s major-league swan song; he played in the minors for the Seattle Mariners in 2005, then retired after attempting a comeback in 2008 in the Washington Nationals organization.

Reese’s inside-the-park home run was the only one of the 2004 season for the Red Sox. David Newhan of the Orioles hit one against them on July 21, a two-run homer at Fenway Park in the top of the seventh inning in a game Baltimore won, 10-5.

Prior to Reese, the last Red Sox player to hit two homers in one game, with one of the two an IPHR was Tony Armas on September 24, 1983.10

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Russ Walsh 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 for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200405080.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B05080BOS2004.htm

Notes

1 Ron Cook, “Reese’s Play Gets the Fans in a Head-Bobbing Mood,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 19, 2002: B-1; David Heuschkel, “Sox Safer at Second: Reese Agrees to 1-Year Deal,” Hartford Courant, December 24, 2003: C6.

2 Bob Ryan, “The Catch on This Day His Increased Power,” Boston Globe, May 9, 2004: C1.

3 Nick Cafardo, “Nice Pokes by Reese,” Boston Globe, May 9, 2004: C9. Reese said he figured he could get three bases out of it, but between second and third saw third-base coach Dale Sveum waving him around third and he had to “kick it back in and almost didn’t make it.”

4 Nick Cafardo, “BP for Garciaparra, Then Some Defense,” Boston Globe, May 9, 2004: C9. In 1,549 major-league games from 1997 through 2011 (all for the Red Sox), Varitek stole a total of 25 bases. Ten of the 25 were in 2004.

5 Bob Dutton, “Boston Pokes Around Royals – Reese’s Two Homers Help Red Sox Rout,” Kansas City Star, May 9, 2004: C1.

6 Ryan, “The Catch on This Day.”

7 Ryan.

8 Dutton.

9 Francona added, “But, again, you tend to be a worrywart watching from where I am. He was fine. He never would have been in that game if I had any qualms.” Paul Harber, “Completely Satisfying,” Boston Globe, May 9, 2004: C8.

10 So wrote Heuschkel of the Hartford Courant. He added that Reese was the 24th player to have hit both home runs in consecutive at-bats, the most recent being Robin Yount in 1982 with the Brewers. Dave Heuschkel, whose column also ran in the Stamford (Connecticut) Sunday Advocate, May 9, 2008: C3. Yount’s 1982 game was on June 19 at Tiger Stadium.