April 30, 2002: Darren Oliver throws first shutout at Fenway Park by a Red Sox lefty in nine years

Being a left-handed pitcher at Fenway Park can be difficult. After all, the Green Monster stands as an awe-inspiring, 37-foot-high target for any right-handed batter who dares to take advantage of the short distance to left field. In fact, before the 2002 season, it had been nine years since a Boston Red Sox lefty had thrown a complete game shutout at the ballpark.1 

Darren Oliver may have seemed like an unlikely choice to break that streak. He arrived in Boston in an offseason 2001-02 trade that sent outfielder Carl Everett to the Texas Rangers. His overall numbers were not particularly impressive. The 31-year-old Oliver joined the Red Sox with a 67-60 career record in nine seasons and a lifetime ERA of 5.04. In his last two seasons with the Rangers, he had ERAs of 7.42 and 6.02.

Oliver entered the 2002 season in the bullpen and made a forgettable appearance on Opening Day, relieving Pedro Martínez in the fourth inning and allowing three runs in 1⅔ innings in a 12-11 slugfest loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. Effective work in spring training and historically strong numbers against the New York Yankees persuaded manager Grady Little to let him start on April 12 against the New York Yankees.2 After allowing no runs and pitching into the sixth inning, he became a part of the rotation.

On April 30 Oliver faced the Baltimore Orioles, a team that had defeated him in his previous start, six days earlier. The Orioles, in their first season in 20 years without future Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr., had a 12-13 record and were aiming to avoid their fifth straight losing season.

The Red Sox were leading the American League East Division with a 15-7 record, one game ahead of the Yankees, and hoped to make the playoffs for the first time since their 1999 season ended in a heartbreaking loss to the Yankees in the AL Championship Series. Three days earlier, on April 27, Boston’s Derek Lowe had no-hit the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

The Orioles picked up where they left off against Oliver with a leadoff double by Melvin Mora to left field. Mora attempted to advance to third after Gary Matthews Jr. struck out, but Red Sox catcher Doug Mirabelli thwarted the steal with a throw to third baseman Shea Hillenbrand. David Segui grounded to shortstop Nomar Garciaparra to end the inning.

Mora’s struggles continued in the bottom of the inning when his throwing error on a grounder to shortstop allowed the leadoff man, Johnny Damon, to reach first. Damon had been a star acquisition for the Red Sox in the 2001-2002 offseason, signing a four-year, $31 million contract. He stole second base and advanced to third on a groundout by Jose Offerman. Garciaparra brought Damon home with a double off the wall in deep center field and came home himself on Manny Ramírez’s single to right field.3 Orioles starter Calvin Maduro, making his fifth start of the season and the third in his career against Boston, retired the next two batters to end the inning.4

Baltimore’s Jeff Conine started the second inning with a fly ball to deep right field, but right into the glove of Trot Nixon. Jay Gibbons came to the plate next and sent the ball toward the Green Monster. It banged off the wall. Gibbons tried for a double, but Ramírez threw to second baseman Rey Sánchez, who tagged Gibbons out.5 Strong fielding had given Oliver two outs on two hard-hit balls. A routine groundout to third by Tony Batista ended the inning.

In the bottom of the second inning, Sánchez reached first base on third baseman Batista’s error and advanced to second base on a single by Damon. Offerman’s foul pop on the third-base side ended the inning and kept it a 2-0 ball game.

A pattern was beginning to emerge for the Orioles – the bats died when runners got on base. In the fourth inning, Conine singled with two outs and Gibbons followed with what turned out to be Baltimore’s only hit of the game with a runner on base, a line-drive single to right that moved Conine to third. But Batista grounded into another routine out to end the inning and preserve the Red Sox’ two-run lead.

Baltimore’s Marty Cordova began the fifth inning with a line-drive single to right field. Hope for a rally did not last long, however, as Hillenbrand turned Brook Fordyce’s first-pitch grounder into an around-the-horn double play. Jerry Hairston hit a groundball to shortstop to end the inning.

Mora led off the top of the sixth with a bunt along the third-base side to put another leadoff Oriole on base. Baltimore failed to put a ball in play to move him over. Matthews hit a pop fly back to the catcher then Segui and Conine struck out.

Gibbons’ seventh-inning single between the first and second basemen was Baltimore’s third leadoff hit in three innings. Once again, the Orioles failed to advance the runner. Batista hit a groundball to shortstop Garciaparra for a double play, and Cordova grounded to Hillenbrand.

Oliver finally kept the leadoff hitter off the bases in the eighth, when Brook Fordyce grounded out to third. Oliver retired the next two batters to end the inning. This was the first inning in which he did not give up a hit.6

For his part, Maduro was keeping the Red Sox off the bases entirely. Entering the bottom of the eighth inning, no Red Sox batter had reached base since Damon’s single in the second inning. Sixteen Red Sox in a row had been retired.

All of that changed in the eighth inning. On the third pitch, Sánchez sent a ball over the Green Monster for his first home run in 1,094 at-bats – since hitting a walk-off three-run homer against the Orioles on April 12, 2000.7 Damon followed with a single to center field. Maduro was then pulled from the game in favor of Willis Roberts.

Damon got his second steal of the game and moved to third on Offerman’s groundout. Garciaparra brought Damon home on a single to left field to make it a 4-0 ballgame. Garciaparra was then caught stealing during a Manny Ramirez at-bat that resulted in a walk. Shea Hillenbrand hit a single to get on base, but Tony Clark’s groundout ended the inning.

The Orioles entered the ninth inning down to their last three outs. A rally was not on the horizon and Oliver set them down to end the ballgame. The final out came with Conine looking at strike three on a 3-and-2 count, for Oliver’s fourth strikeout of the night.

Darren Oliver had the first shutout at Fenway Park by a left-handed Red Sox pitcher in nine years. In pitching his fourth career shutout, Oliver was the beneficiary of good fielding behind him and Baltimore’s inability to take advantage of opportunities. Despite outhitting the Red Sox 8-7, the Orioles generated only mild scoring threats. They were 1-for-8 with runners on base, and of the four leadoff hitters to reach base, not one made it to third.8 Mora’s double to begin the game was their only extra-base hit and one of only two times the Orioles put a runner in scoring position.

This game marked the high point in Oliver’s tenure in Boston, which ended two months later with his release on July 2. At the time of his release, Oliver had a record of 4-5 in nine starts with a 4.66 ERA. He had ended the month of April with a 2.88 ERA, but a disastrous May saw his ERA balloon to 5.14. After a May 26 loss to the Yankees in which he gave up seven earned runs in four innings, Oliver was moved to the bullpen. He made four appearances out of the bullpen before his release. By 2006, as a member of the New York Mets, Oliver was a full-time reliever, and he spent the final eight seasons of his 20-season big-league career in the bullpen.

The 2002 Red Sox led the division consistently until shortly before Oliver’s release. A 6-14 stretch from June 7 to 30 knocked them out of first place to stay. Boston’s 93 wins were the franchise’s most since they won 94 games in 1999, but the Red Sox finished 10½ games behind the Yankees for the AL East Division lead and six games behind the eventual World Series champion Anaheim Angels for the American League wild card.9 A stretch of six postseason appearances in seven seasons followed for Boston, including World Series championships in 2004 and 2007, the franchise’s first since 1918.

After Oliver, the Red Sox waited five years for the next complete-game shutout by a lefty at Fenway Park, until Kason Gabbard blanked the Kansas City Royals in July 2007.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Troy Olszewski and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Darren Oliver, Trading Card Database.

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/BOS200204300.shtml                                         

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2002/B04300BOS2002.htm

Notes

1 Bob Hohler, “Razor Sharp Red Sox Back Oliver Shutout,” Boston Globe, May 1, 2002: F6.

2 Michael Smith, “Oliver Set to Ply Trade,” Boston Globe, April 12, 2002: E3.

3 “Razor Sharp Red Sox Back Oliver Shutout.”

4 Maduro entered the game with a record of 1-2 and a 6.00 ERA. Both of his losses came at the hands of the Red Sox. In his first outing against the Red Sox, he gave up four runs in four innings and in his second, he gave up five runs in five innings. Maduro made his final big-league start just over a month later, a June 4 loss to the Yankees.

5 Mark Blaudschun, “Game Had Web of Intrigue,” Boston Globe, May 1, 2002: F5.

6 Joe Christensen, “Oliver Shuts April Door on Orioles, 4-0,” Baltimore Sun, May 1, 2002: D6.

7 “Oliver Shuts April Door on Orioles, 4-0.”

8 “Oliver Shuts April Door on Orioles, 4-0.”

9 The Orioles had their fifth straight losing season in 2002 at 65-97, finishing ahead of only the 55-106 Tampa Bay Devil Rays.