July 21, 2013: Mike Napoli’s second home run of game gives Red Sox Sunday night walk-off win over Yankees

Well after midnight, as July 21 turned to July 22, Mike Napoli’s solo home run with two outs in the bottom of the 11th inning allowed those remaining from the Sunday night crowd of 38,138 who had packed Fenway Park to head home after seeing the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees, 8-7. They had seen the fourth walk-off homer hit by a Boston batter in 2013.1

The win, Boston’s second in the three-game weekend series following the All-Star break, let the Red Sox maintain their 1½-game lead over the Tampa Bay Rays for first place in the American League East Division.

Red Sox manager John Farrell’s starter was Ryan Dempster. Starting for Joe Girardi’s New York Yankees was CC Sabathia, pitching on his 33rd birthday. The fourth-place Yankees, seven games over .500, were six games behind Boston. This was game number 100 of the season for the Red Sox, with 62 more to go.2 As was true almost all year long, the Yankees were playing without both Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, and now without Curtis Granderson, Mark Teixeira, and Kevin Youkilis.3

The Yankees got to Dempster first, scoring two runs in the first inning. Brett Gardner led off with a single and made it to third when Dempster fielded a comebacker from Ichiro Suzuki and threw errantly to second base.

Ichiro then stole second, and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s throw went into center for Boston’s second throwing error of the inning. Gardner scored and Suzuki wound up on third, still with nobody out. A walk and a strikeout followed, and then Vernon Wells singled to left, scoring Ichiro.

The only Red Sox runner to reach base in the bottom of the first was the leadoff batter, Jacoby Ellsbury, hit by a pitch.

In the second inning, the Yankees added a third run. Catcher Chris Stewart walked and moved to third on two groundouts. After Ichiro was hit by a pitch, second baseman Robinson Cano singled up the middle for a 3-0 Yankees lead.

The Red Sox rallied against Sabathia for a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the third. Ellsbury led off with a double down the right-field line. Shane Victorino’s bunt, which was scored a sacrifice, sent Ellsbury to third base. Dustin Pedroia singled into left, driving in the first run.

David Ortiz singled, Pedroia going first to third. Napoli homered over everything in left field, producing three more runs with his 12th home run of the season.

Sabathia hit another batter, shortstop Stephen Drew, leading off the bottom of the fourth. Three singles followed – a bunt single by third baseman Jose Iglesias, a line-drive single to right field by Ellsbury that loaded the bases, and a two-run single to left by Victorino, one that struck in front of third baseman Luis Cruz but then bounded over his head.

With Sabathia still in the game, Boston bumped up its lead to 7-3 when Jonny Gomes homered off one of the light towers above the left-field wall to lead off the fifth.

The Yankees began their comeback against Dempster in the top of the sixth. Shortstop Eduardo Nuñez singled to left. He stole second, and Stewart walked. After one out, Gardner singled off Dempster, driving in Nuñez.

The call went out to the bullpen and Craig Breslow came on in relief. Ichiro singled to center, loading the bases. Cano singled to left, driving in Stewart. First baseman Lyle Overbay grounded into a 4-6-3 double play, preventing any further damage, but the lead was down to 7-5.

After a four-pitch base on balls saw Ellsbury reach to lead off the bottom of the sixth, rookie Preston Claiborne relieved Sabathia. Ellsbury stole second and took third on a groundout. One out later, Ortiz was walked intentionally – and then stole second base, one of four steals for him in 2013.4 But Napoli struck out, stranding the runners.

Two more Yankees runs in the top of the seventh tied the score. Breslow walked Wells, and Nuñez hit a one-out single to right. Junichi Tazawa took over from Breslow. On his first pitch, Stewart bunted toward third and reached when Iglesias’s throw to first base went wild, the third error of the game for the Red Sox. Wells scored, Nuñez made it to third, and Stewart to second. Cruz grounded out, short to first, but Nuñez scored, tying the game, 7-7.

Claiborne walked the first batter in the seventh, and was replaced by Boone Logan, who remarkably struck out all three batters he faced, each one of them on a swinging third strike.

Matt Thornton replaced Tazawa in the bottom of the inning. He struck out two and got the third Yankee to ground out.

David Robertson, who had not allowed a run in 12 appearances, replaced Logan in the eighth and suffered through a single, a stolen base, an error, and a walk. The bases were loaded with one out, and the stage was set for Napoli, but the first baseman continued his boom-or-bust night by hitting into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.

There were several more relievers to come. In the top of the ninth, Koji Uehara gave up a leadoff single but nothing came of it. In the bottom of the ninth, Shawn Kelley induced a foul popup to the catcher and struck out the next two Red Sox.

Drake Britton pitched into trouble in the Yankees’ 10th by walking Gardner and giving up a one-out single to Cano, but Overbay hit into another double play, keeping the game tied.

Kelley completed his spotless two-inning outing by striking out the side in the 10th, giving him five strikeouts in a row.

Boston’s seventh pitcher was Pedro Beato, relieving for the second time in two games. After two fly balls to right, Nuñez singled to left, but Saltalamacchia gunned him down stealing with Stewart at the plate. (The Boston Globe reported that video replay showed Nuñez had been safe under second baseman Pedroia’s tag, but the major leagues’ replay rules did not allow teams to challenge an umpire’s call until 2014.5)

The Yankees called on their sixth pitcher, Adam Warren, for the bottom of the 11th. He recorded the first two outs. Pedroia hit the ball to deep right, but Ichiro hauled it in. Ortiz grounded out, second to first.

Napoli came up for the sixth time in the game. Besides his home run, he had struck out three times and hit into a double play. He worked to a 3-and-2 count, fouled off Warren’s sixth pitch, and then hit his second home run of the game into the second or third row of the center-field bleachers, winning the game for the Red Sox.

Napoli’s final blow came at 12:53 A.M. and delighted the sizable crowd remaining at the ballpark.6

After the game, recalling his eighth inning at-bat when he hit into a double play, Napoli said, “That’s what’s great about this game; you always get another chance. I was glad I got the opportunity to go up there and make up for it.”7

The Yankees had outhit the Red Sox, 13-11, and Boston had committed three errors to New York’s one, with one of the Red Sox errors leading to three unearned runs in the third inning.

Beato got the win; he finished 2013 at 1-1 with 10 innings of work in 10 relief appearances. Warren dropped to 1-1; he finished the season 3-2, closing 17 of his 34 games.

Boston kept its lead over surging Tampa Bay, which won for the 17th time in 19 games earlier in the day. The Rays were headed to Fenway Park for a four-game series with the Red Sox, beginning on Monday, July 22.8

In head-to-head matchups during the 2013 season, the Red Sox’ record against the Yankees was 13-6, their best record against any opponent against which they played eight or more games.

In all, the Red Sox won 11 of their 81 home games via walk-off hits, but not one of them after August 1. The other seven walk-offs included doubles by Napoli, Drew, and Ellsbury, and singles by Victorino, Drew, and Daniel Nava, with another scoring on a fielding error on a ball hit by Victorino.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Tom Brown 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.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS201307210.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2013/B07210BOS2013.htm

Notes

1 The three walk-off homers before Napoli’s were all hit in the bottom of the ninth: David Ortiz against Michael Kirkman (Texas Rangers) on June 6, Jonny Gomes against Joel Peralta (Tampa Bay Rays) on June 18, and Gomes – again – off Luke Gregerson (San Diego Padres) on July 3.

2 It was game number 98 for the Yankees.

3 The depleted Yankees ranks were noted in David Waldstein, “Napoli’s Homer Ends Late Night Drama as Yankees Fall at Fenway,” New York Times, July 22, 2013: D2.

4 In his 20-year career, Ortiz stole 17 bases.

5 Peter Abraham, “Late Night Special,” Boston Globe, July 22, 2013: C1.

6 In the Boston Globe, Abraham wrote that the crowd size had “thinned considerably” by the 11th inning (the game lasted 4 hours and 46 minutes), but footage of Napoli’s walk-off home run shows that many fans remained. ESPN Television Broadcast, “Napoli Blasts Walk-Off Home Run in the 11th,” YouTube video (MLB.com), accessed February 10, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xsRRxO_Wfs.

7 Abraham.

8 The Rays won three of the four games, including a rain-postponed game, and took over first place temporarily in late July.