April 15, 2013: Red Sox win second walk-off in three days before bombs explode at Boston Marathon

On April 15, 2013, Mike Napoli’s bat and Dustin Pedroia’s hustle gave the Boston Red Sox a 3-2 win in their traditional late-morning home game on Patriots Day and Marathon Monday, the Red Sox’ second walk-off in three days over the Tampa Bay Rays.

Just minutes after this game ended, the day’s significance was forever changed. Two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three innocent bystanders who had gone to watch the 117th annual running of the marathon. The finish line is in Boston’s Copley Square 1.12 miles from Fenway Park.1

None among the sold-out ballpark (37,449) knew the day would be marred by such a horrific event—one that even resulted in the whole Greater Boston area being urged to “shelter in place” (asked to remain in their homes) for the next few days until the bombers had been identified and neutralized.

Most at Fenway were, naturally, Red Sox fans, and pleased to see their team complete a three-game sweep of the visiting Rays, winning when Pedroia scored on Napoli’s ninth-inning double, less than 48 hours after their 10-inning walk-off on April 13 and the day after Clay Buchholz had thrown no-hit ball through seven innings. He had given up two hits in the eighth, and Boston won, 5-0.

Wins were welcome in Boston; the 2013 Red Sox were coming off a last-place finish in 2012 and a dispiriting collapse at the end of the 2011 season. The team had a new manager in John Farrell and several new players. The Rays were led by Joe Maddon.

April 15 was Jackie Robinson Day throughout baseball, with all players for all teams wearing the number 42 (Robinson’s number) to commemorate the 66th anniversary of Robinson’s breaking baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

Farrell’s starting pitcher was veteran right-hander Ryan Dempster, in his 16th year in the majors (his first with Boston but also his final one, as it transpired), while Maddon went with another righty, Jeremy Hellickson, in his fourth year with the Rays. Hellickson had been voted American League Rookie of the Year in 2011. Both starters pitched well in this game, working seven innings apiece with Dempster allowing only one run and Hellickson allowing two.

Delivering the first pitch at 11:05 A.M., Dempster retired the Rays in order in the first inning with two strikeouts and a groundout, third to first. Red Sox center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury started his morning with a leadoff triple off the base of the wall in straightaway center on the eighth pitch of his at-bat.2 Right fielder Shane Victorino hit a grounder fielded on the edge of the outfield grass by second baseman Ryan Roberts, Ellsbury scoring on the play. The next two batters made outs as well. It was 1-0, Boston.

Left fielder Matt Joyce singled on Dempster’s first pitch in the second inning, but a strikeout and double play followed. Neither team scored in the second or third, and by the end of three full, both pitchers had five strikeouts.

The Rays tied it in the top of the fourth. After two outs, third baseman Evan Longoria swung at the first pitch he saw and homered over everything in straightaway left field. That made it 1-1. It was the 27-year-old slugger’s first home run of 2013, and the first homer any Rays batter had hit in a week.

After a pair of one-two-three half-innings, the Red Sox came to bat in the bottom of the fifth and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia restored the one-run lead with a solo home run, his second of the season, well into the visitors’ bullpen in right field. Shortstop Stephen Drew doubled off the scoreboard in left but never got past second base.

Despite a walk, stolen base, a wild pitch, and another walk, the Rays were scoreless in the top of the sixth. Hellickson set the Red Sox down in order in their half.

In the seventh, Dempster set down the Rays in order. He’d struck out 10 Rays.

Saltalamacchia walked with one out in the bottom of the seventh, but was thrown out on a stolen-base attempt as Will Middlebrooks swung and missed, striking out. It was Hellickson’s ninth K.

Koji Uehara relieved and pitched to three batters in the top of the eighth. Each one made an out. Jake McGee relieved Hellickson to pitch the bottom of the eighth. He walked one batter but nothing more eventuated.

The Red Sox took their 2-1 lead to the top of the ninth, and Andrew Bailey took over for Uehara. Center fielder Desmond Jennings led off with a single into left. While right fielder Ben Zobrist was batting, Jennings stole second. The Rays had been hitless in their last 24 at-bats with runners in scoring position, but Zobrist broke the string with a single to left, sending Jennings home with the tying run.

Zobrist took second on the throw to the plate, but Bailey struck out the next two batters, then got Roberts to pop out to second.

Joel Peralta relieved McGee to try to hold back the Red Sox and send the game into extra innings. Victorino flied out, but Pedroia walked. On a 2-and-2 count, after a lengthy delay while catcher José Molina had to replace his face mask, Napoli doubled off high off the wall in left-center field, Joyce played the ball awkwardly, and Pedroia kept running—scoring all the way from first base with the winning run.

The Red Sox won, 3-2, their second walk-off in the three games against the Rays, with the shutout in between. The team had improved their record to 8-4, all against teams in the division, and it seemed a very different team from the one that finished last in the AL East just the year before.3

After the on-field celebration, the Red Sox went back to the clubhouse to change and make their way to Cleveland in advance of Tuesday night’s game against the Indians.4

The game ended at 2:08 P.M. and both teams planned to depart, the Rays for Baltimore and the Red Sox for Cleveland. At 2:49 P.M., the two bombs exploded near the finish line at the Boston Marathon.

The team was boarding the bus for the airport when Middlebrooks’ father called the ballplayer with the news. Pedroia, who lived nor far from the finish line, said, “I was there actually the day before. You can’t even describe how you feel. All of us. Man, that bus ride was silent. It’s still hard to put together.”5

A night later, a Red Sox jersey hung in the dugout in Cleveland, featuring the number “617,” a tribute to Boston’s area code, and the words “Boston Strong.” The idea had reportedly come from outfielder Jonny Gomes.6 Both teams wore black armbands.

The surviving bomber was arrested on April 19.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber 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. A video of the full game can be seen on YouTube. Thanks to Jay Caldwell for supplying Tampa Bay Times newspaper coverage.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS201304150.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2013/B04150BOS2013.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-_KAHDDjSs

Notes

1 What is sometimes referred to as “Marathon Monday” is a state holiday known as Patriots Day, to honor the April 19, 1775, battles in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, which were the first battles of the Revolutionary War by which the 13 American Colonies earned their independence from Great Britain, later becoming the United States of America.

The Boston Marathon has been run on Patriots Day since 1897. The Red Sox have played at home on Patriots Day every year since 1960, except for the year the players were on strike, 1995, and the pandemic year of 2020. The Marathon route takes runners through Kenmore Square, two blocks from Fenway Park. The only morning game on the major-league schedule is typically scheduled to start at 11:05 A.M., thus timed to conclude as large numbers of runners pass by, prepared to finish the final mile. Many fans leave Fenway and go to cheer on the runners. More detail on Patriots Day and the Red Sox can be found in Bill Nowlin, Red Sox Threads (Burlington, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2008). Cy Young leads all franchise pitchers with four wins in Patriots Day games, back in the days the Boston Braves and Boston Red Sox alternated on the day. Through the year 2022, the Red Sox record in Patriots Day games is 71-54.

The 2013 race was the 117th annual running of the Marathon, an event which that year included some 26,000 runners and drew hundreds of thousands of spectators. Two brothers from Greater Boston who hailed from a former Soviet republic both became “self-radicalized” and—acting in what they considered to be in support of Islam and solidarity with Al-Qaeda—fashioned homemade bombs from pressure cookers and brought them near to the finish line on Boston’s Boylston Street, where they exploded them approximately 12 seconds apart, killing three and wounding more than 150. Killed were 29-year-old Krystle Campbell of Arlington Massachusetts, 8-year-old Martin Richard of Dorchester, Massachusetts, and Lu Lingzi, a 23-year-old graduate student from China. A few days later, the two brothers—on the run—shot and killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, Sean Collier. The names of these victims are mentioned here but not the names of those who perpetrated the bombing or those of the many other victims.

2 The ball went over the head of center fielder Desmond Jennings, bounced away from him, and was thrown in by right fielder Ben Zobrist.

3 The 4-8 start for Tampa Bay was the worst in the franchise’s 16-season history. The Rays did, though, finish second in the AL East at 92-71, 5½ games behind the Red Sox. They won the AL wild-card game against the Cleveland Indians but lost the AL Division Series to the Red Sox in four games.

4 Though overshadowed by all that happened afterward, the Red Sox swept all three games in Cleveland. They returned home on April 20 for an emotional homecoming preceded by a notable speech from David Ortiz, and won that game, too.

5 Peter Abraham, “Situation Is in Their Thoughts,” Boston Globe, April 17, 2013: C6.

6 Peter Abraham, “Sox Remain Strong, Top Francona, Indians,” Boston Globe, April 17, 2013: C1.