August 13, 1988: Red Sox win record-setting 24th consecutive home game

The Boston Red Sox’ record-setting home winning streak in 1988 began, unassumingly, with a 10-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles on June 25. The Red Sox had lost, 6-2, the night before, with reigning two-time American League Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens giving up all six runs and not making it out of the third inning. That loss evened the team’s record at 34-34.

Seven weeks passed before their next defeat at Fenway Park. By then the Red Sox had changed managers, traded for veteran starting pitcher Mike Boddicker, and surged into the AL East race. They won 24 home games in a row, spread over 50 days from June 25 through this 16-4 win over the Detroit Tigers on August 13.

John McNamara was Boston’s manager for the first five games of the streak, from June 25 to 29. But a 4-8 record on a 12-game road trip left the Red Sox just a game over .500, in fourth place, and nine games out of first when they returned to Fenway Park after the All-Star break. Boston’s ownership decided to change managers, promoting third-base coach Joe Morgan to interim manager.

The Red Sox got hot, winning their first 12 games under Morgan, 11 of them at home from July 15 to 24. They eventually stretched it to 18 wins in 19 games, the only loss a 9-8 decision in Texas on July 26. After the Red Sox made it 22 home wins in a row by rallying to beat the Rangers on August 3, they were tied for first in the division. It was called “Morgan Magic,” and the manager was rewarded by having “interim” removed from his job title.1

The Red Sox went on three road trips during their home streak. Their record during the 24 games on the road was 8-16. After the third of those road trips, which ended on August 11, they were in second place, trailing the first-place Tigers by 4½ games.

A home series with Detroit gave the Red Sox another chance to charge toward the top. They won their 23rd consecutive home game on August 12, beating the Tigers, 9-4. They had already set an American League record.2

Morgan, looking ahead to this Saturday game, televised nationally as NBC’s Game of the Week, said of the streak, “I’m more concerned about beating the Tigers. I’ll take a win tomorrow over that record any day.” (How the team could beat the Tigers on the 13th without extending the record perplexed at least one Red Sox player: “Just how does he figure we’re going to do that?”3)

Both starters were right-handers. Mike Boddicker was a recent arrival in Boston. On July 29 the Red Sox had traded two promising young players, pitcher Curt Schilling and outfielder Brady Anderson, to Baltimore for Boddicker, who had two complete-game postseason wins in 1983 and 20 wins a year later. Boddicker came into the game with a 2-1 record and a 1.86 ERA in his first three starts with the Red Sox. Jeff Robinson started for Detroit.

Both pitched reasonably well for the first five innings, and the score was 3-1 in Boston’s favor at the end of five. A two-run homer over everything in left field  by Dwight Evans in the bottom of the first had given the Red Sox an early lead, trimmed by a Tigers walk and single, and shortstop Jody Reed’s throwing error in the top of the second.4 In the fifth, first baseman Todd Benzinger hit a sacrifice fly after back-to-back singles by Evans and Mike Greenwell.5

The Tigers struck back in the sixth. Shortstop Alan Trammell, runner-up for American League MVP honors a season earlier, hit a one-out three-run homer to left off Boddicker, giving Detroit a 4-3 lead.

The Red Sox rallied in their half of the inning. Robinson walked Wade Boggs in between strikeouts of Rich Gedman and Spike Owen. Evans then hit a home run to left, also over everything, for his second two-run homer of the game and a 5-4 Red Sox lead.

Tigers manager Sparky Anderson had Willie Hernandez relieve Robinson.6 The first batter Hernandez faced was Greenwell, who homered to straightaway left to push the lead to 6-4.

The Tigers got no more runs in the game, but Boston added 10.

Tom Bolton relieved Boddicker and retired the side in order in the seventh. In Boston’s half, after the stretch, Gedman doubled in Reed, then Owen doubled in both Gedman and Boggs, with a drive that hopped up and hit the wall in left-center. The score was 9-4. Don Heinkel relieved Hernandez and got out of the inning yielding nothing but a base on balls.

Bolton retired the Tigers in order again in the eighth. Jim Rice led off the bottom of the inning with a double off Heinkel. Ellis Burks singled to right. So did Reed, scoring pinch-runner Kevin Romine for a 10-4 lead.

Paul Gibson replaced Heinkel. The first five batters he faced all reached base. Gedman doubled to left-center, driving in Burks and Reed. Boggs hit an opposite-field single between third and shortstop. Owen walked on five pitches, bringing up Evans with the bases loaded.

The 36-year-old Evans, in his 17th season with the Red Sox, tripled to the 420-foot mark in the center-field triangle, clearing the bases and giving him his fifth, sixth, and seventh RBIs of the game.7 Boston’s lead was 15-4.

Greenwell singled into left, scoring Evans. Gibson got outs from Benzinger and Romine, but after Burks doubled down the line in left, Anderson summoned Mike Henneman from the bullpen. He got Reed to ground out, short to first. It was 16-4, Red Sox.

The Tigers failed to mount a 12-run rally in the top of the ninth. Bolton gave up a leadoff single to pinch-hitter Luis Salazar (batting for Trammell – a clear indication the Tigers were throwing in the towel), but then got a double play and a groundout to second base to end the game.8

Afterward, Anderson said, “I call that an agent’s game. We score four runs; they needed five to beat us. Anything after that is just statistics for the agents.”9

The 16 runs scored against the Tigers were the most the Red Sox had scored against them since May 6, 1959, when they won in Detroit, 17-6.10

The next day, August 14, Detroit snapped the streak with a 12-run rout of its own. By the top of the third, the Tigers had a 14-0 lead, and they coasted to an 18-6 win, battering four Red Sox pitchers for 19 hits.

Bookending the streak, Clemens took that loss, hammered for eight runs in just 1⅓ innings.11 It was the first game manager Joe Morgan had lost at home since he had taken over the ballclub a month earlier, on July 14. “It’s over,” he said, “And that’s a helluva way to have it over.”12 Most of the 33,757 who had come to see the Red Sox win their 25th straight at home had to have been disappointed. “You know it’s inevitable, said Reed. “What the heck, so we’re 24-1 now.”13

The streak included series sweeps of the Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, Milwaukee Brewers, and Texas Rangers. The 24 consecutive home wins tied a major-league record in games played since 1900, set by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1978.14

During their streak, the Red Sox outscored their visitors, 167-77.  Three of the games were walk-off wins (July 16, 20, and 30). The winning was shared among the pitching staff – relievers Wes Gardner, Dennis Lamp, and Mike Smithson were each credited with four wins, starters Clemens and Bruce Hurst both had three, Boddicker had two, with one each for Bolton, Oil Can Boyd, Lee Smith, and Bob Stanley. The pitching staff’s ERA over the stretch was 2.95.

The team’s collective batting average was .340 (282 hits in 829 at-bats.) There were 26 homers hit by Boston batters: seven by Evans, four by Greenwell, three by Rice, and one or two by 10 other Red Sox. In terms of RBIs over the streak, Fenway patrons saw Greenwell drive in 26 runs, Evans 22, Burks 18, Reed 14, Rice 13, Boggs 12, Marty Barrett 11, Benzinger 11, Gedman 11, Larry Parrish 9, Rick Cerone 7, Owen 4, and Romine 1.  

After the August 13 game, the Red Sox were 66-50. They were in second place, 2½ games behind the Tigers. By season’s end, Boston finished first, one game ahead of Detroit. They were swept by the Oakland A’s in the ALCS.

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, Retrosheet.org, and the NBC Game of the Week broadcast on YouTube. 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS198808130.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1988/B08130BOS1988.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdTBP86weCU

Notes

1 For more information on “Morgan Magic,” see Herb Crehan, “Joe Morgan & Morgan Magic,” in bostonbaseballhistory.com, July 25, 2022, https://bostonbaseballhistory.com/hot-stove-league-joe-morgan-morgan-magic/.

2 The previous record had been held by the 1931 Philadelphia Athletics, who had won 22 home games in a row. The 1931 A’s also won 14 consecutive road games, from May 3 through the first game of the May 30 doubleheader in Boston. Their 22-game home win streak ran from July 15 through August 31.

3 George Kimball, “There’s Just No Place Like Home,” Boston Herald, August 13, 1988: 67.

4 Evans thought he’d been hit by a pitch in the first inning and started for first base, but plate umpire Larry McCoy called him back. He hit the next pitch for the home run. David Cataneo, “Evans Simply a Smash,” Boston Herald, August 14, 1988: B1, B12.

5 It was an odd game for Benzinger. He was 0-for-5, the only batter in Boston’s lineup not to have a hit. But he did get an RBI on his sacrifice fly. He struck out four times – but reached base twice after striking out when the pitch got away from the catcher in the third and again in the sixth, the latter ruled a wild pitch. After the game, he said, “I was going for the hat trick in the seventh when I swung at that ball in the dirt, but their catcher got it. That would have been some kind of record.” Ron Borges, “Not an Average Day at the Park,” Boston Globe, August 14, 1988: 56. The out he made in the eighth was a bizarre 8-4-6 play: He hit what could have been a single into center field, but it was questionable whether it would drop in and the runner on first base, Mike Greenwell, had had to stick closer to the first-base bag in order not to get doubled off. When the ball fell in, he couldn’t get to second in time and was forced out.

6 Robinson had come into the game with AL batters hitting only .189 against him, the lowest for any starter in the league. Malcolm Lester, “Series a Nightmare for Tigers,” Boston Globe, August 14, 1988: 56. 

7 Before the series against Detroit, Evans had been suffering an 0-for-22 stretch. His 12 total bases in this game represented a career high.

8 Bolton had pitched three full innings and was credited with a save – the first (and as it turned out, the only) save of his major-league career. His won-lost record was 31-34, pitching in eight seasons from 1987 to 1994.

9 Joe Giuliotti, “Red Sox Soar for 24,” Boston Herald, August 14, 1988: B1, B10.

10 Kevin Paul Dupont, “Sox Take the Home Rout, 16-4,” Boston Globe, August 14, 1988: 49, 56. 

11 Those two losses aside, Clemens’ record for 1988 was 18-12 with a 2.93 ERA and a major-league-leading eight shutouts.

12 Kevin Paul Dupont, “Tigers Claw Back at Red Sox, 18-6,” Boston Globe, August 15, 1988: 37. 

13 Dupont, “Tigers Claw Back at Red Sox, 18-6,” 42.

14 Pittsburgh’s streak ran from August 16 to September 29. The final two wins were walk-offs in a doubleheader sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies.