April 21, 1988: Boston’s Steve Ellsworth tames Tigers for sole big-league win

Boston Red Sox manager John McNamara asked right-hander Steve Ellsworth to take the mound on the afternoon of April 21, 1988, at Tiger Stadium. It was Ellsworth’s third big-league start and – as had been the case in his debut exactly two weeks earlier – he didn’t know for sure that he would be pitching until a very few hours beforehand.1 The Red Sox-Detroit Tigers game on the 20th had been rained out and, though Ellsworth was scheduled to start on the 21st, whether McNamara would select Jeff Sellers – who’d planned to pitch on the 20th – was not determined until the morning of the 21st. Sellers had thrown 60 pitches in the bullpen before the game was called the night before, so Ellsworth was given the game ball.2

It was early in the season, the Red Sox (9-5) in third place in the American League East Division with the Tigers (7-5) fourth. Starting for Detroit was right-hander Jeff Robinson (1-1), who was in his second major-league season. He had been 9-6 as a rookie in 1987. He gave up two runs on two hits in the top of the first inning. Leadoff batter Ellis Burks singled. After Marty Barrett walked, Wade Boggs grounded into a force play at second, advancing Burks to third. Burks tagged and scored on Jim Rice’s sacrifice fly to right field. Mike Greenwell pounced on the first pitch and doubled to left. Boggs scored on a wild pitch.

Ellsworth walked Tigers leadoff man Gary Pettis on four pitches in the bottom of the first. After one out, Pettis stole second, then scored Detroit’s first run on a double to right by Darrell Evans. Ellsworth got the next two batters to fly out.

After a walk to Spike Owen to lead off the second, a single to left by Brady Anderson sent him to third base. He slid across the plate and scored on Marty Barrett’s squeeze bunt to third base. It was 3-1, Red Sox. Barrett credited Owen: “I saw the third baseman deep and dropped it down, but I didn’t give any signal to Owen. He was alert on the play.”3

The Tigers made it 3-2 in their half of the second on Pat Sheridan’s solo home run to right off the second-deck façade.

A four-run top of the third gave Boston a five-run lead and gave Ellsworth all the runs he needed. After one out, Dwight Evans singled to left and – just nine pitches later – both Rick Cerone and Owen had drawn walks. Robinson struck out Anderson, but Burks tripled off the wall in right-center field, clearing the bases. “It was just a slider that flattened out right over the middle of the plate … just a bad pitch,” Robinson said postgame.4 Four of the five batters Robinson walked had come in to score.

Manager Sparky Anderson called in left-hander Willie Hernández to relieve Robinson.5 On his second pitch, Burks scored from third on a passed ball charged to catcher Matt Nokes. Hernández worked 3⅓ innings, allowing just one hit and no runs. He walked two.

Neither team scored again until the seventh inning, though the Tigers had two on and nobody out in the fifth. Tom Brookens hit into a double play and Pettis flied out. It was one of three double plays hit into by Detroit.

With two outs and runners on first and second in the top of the seventh, facing new pitcher Paul Gibson, Burks singled into center. Cerone scored from second and Anderson from first on an error by Tigers center fielder Pettis, who bobbled the ball. It was 9-2, Boston.

Matt Nokes homered into the lower right-field deck to lead off the bottom of the seventh. For Nokes, who had hit 32 home runs as a rookie in 1987, it was his third home run off Ellsworth; he had homered twice off him in Ellsworth’s April 7 debut, a solo home run and a three-run homer that drove the Red Sox rookie from the mound.

This seventh-inning homer was the last run that Detroit scored. Ellsworth got out of the inning without further damage, and was relieved by Mike Smithson (who walked the bases loaded) and then Dennis Lamp, who got out of the jam.

The Red Sox scored three more runs, off Gibson in the top of the ninth. Cerone singled to center. Owen homered to deep left field. Burks singled, with one out, and Boggs singled, with two outs. Jim Rice singled between third and short, and Burks scored from second. The final score was 11-3, Red Sox, and Steve Ellsworth had his first major-league win.

Ellis Burks was the offensive star of the game, with four base hits and four runs batted in. He scored three runs. It was Burks’ first four-hit game of his career. Spike Owen and Jim Rice both drove in two runs.

After the game, catcher Cerone presented Ellsworth the game ball in recognition of his victory. The rookie pitcher said of the Tigers, “I pitched against them in the last game of spring training and they really hit me hard, and then they did the same thing up in Boston. So when you can beat a team that’s owned you like that, it’s a good feeling.”6

As it happens, the win proved to be the only win of Ellsworth’s big-league career. He lost every one of his next four starts, though his teammates had given him little in the way of run support in the first two, being shut out by Kansas City 2-0 on May 7 and then losing 5-2 to the Twins on May 7. He was hit hard the next two starts, yielding 11 runs in 7⅓ combined innings.

He finished his season and his time in the majors, before the All-Star break, with a record of 1-6 (6.75 ERA).

At the end of the 1988 season, this win loomed large. The Red Sox finished first in the American Legue East (89-73). The Detroit Tigers finished second, just one game behind Boston at 88-74. The Red Sox, managed by Joe Morgan, who had taken over from McNamara in midseason,7 were, however, swept by the Oakland Athletics in the American League Championship Series.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

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

Thanks to Nathan Bierma for supplying Detroit Free Press coverage.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET198804210.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1988/B04210DET1988.htm

Notes

1 In his biography of Steve Ellsworth, David Laurila describes how his debut in the 1:05 P.M. Fenway Park game on April 7 against the visiting Tigers came on short notice, him learning only after he arrived at the park that morning that he would be pitching that day. Oil Can Boyd had been unable to take his scheduled start, and McNamara turned to Ellsworth. The young rookie lasted only two-plus innings, driven from the mound by a Matt Nokes three-run homer in the top of the third, charged with five runs and ultimately bearing the loss. David Laurila, “Steve Ellsworth,” https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/steve-ellsworth/.

2 Ellsworth’s father Dick Ellsworth, a left-hander, pitched for five different clubs over 13 years in the majors, with a record of 115-137 (3.72). He had been 16-7 (3.03) in 1968, the one full year he was with the Red Sox.

3 Joe Giuliotti, “Sox Claw Tigers, 12-3,” Boston Herald, April 22, 1988: 135.

4 Gene Guidi, “Boston Socks Tigers – 12-3,” Detroit Free Press, April 22, 1988: 1F.

5 The Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy was amused when Hernandez was announced. “A new pitcher came into the game and was introduced as Gullermo Hernandez. There was no fooling these Tiger fans. They knew it was Willie Hernandez. The erstwhile bullpen ace asked the Tiger PR department to use his formal name from this time forward.” Dan Shaughnessy, “Red Sox Pound Tigers, 12-3,” Boston Globe, April 22, 1988: 48.

6 Guidi.

7 Third-base coach Joe Morgan had been named to replace McNamara on July 14. So began “Morgan Magic” as the Red Sox. The team was 8½ games behind the Detroit Tigers on the 14th. The Red Sox won their first 12 games under Morgan, and 19 of their first 20. They won 22 consecutive home games. See Todd Wormuth, “August 3, 1988: Morgan Magic: Red Sox win 22nd straight home game,” SABR Games Project, at https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/august-3-1988-morgan-magic-red-sox-win-22nd-straight-home-game/.