April 19, 2004: Gabe Kapler and Mike Timlin contribute to Red Sox comeback win over Yankees on Patriots Day

The annual Patriots Day game in Boston started just after 11:00 A.M. on Monday, April 19. The Red Sox had taken two of the previous three games from the visiting New York Yankees.1 Boston made it three of four with a comeback 5-4 win, aided by contributions from some of the less-celebrated Red Sox players.

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.