July 22, 2004: Orioles’ slugging overcomes Ortiz’s triples in Red Sox rookie Alvarez’s debut

When the Baltimore Orioles met the Boston Red Sox in a day-night doubleheader on July 22, 2004, at Boston’s Fenway Park, both teams were well behind the first-place New York Yankees in the American League East Division. The Red Sox had added starting pitcher Curt Schilling and closer Keith Fouke after losing the 2003 AL Championship Series to the Yankees, but they were in second place, eight games back. The Orioles were fourth despite having acquired sluggers Javy López, Miguel Tejada, and Rafael Palmeiro in the offseason.1

For the first game of the doubleheader, Boston promoted 21-year-old Abe Alvarez from Double A to make his major-league debut as the starting pitcher. The Red Sox had selected Alvarez, a 6-foot-2 soft-tossing lefty, just 13 months earlier in the second round of the June 2003 amateur draft. Alvarez was selected to start this game, according to manager Terry Francona, because he was a left-hander and Baltimore had struggled against lefties to that point in the season.2

Alvarez had a 23-5 record in three seasons at Long Beach State, where he was an All-American.3 A 0.00 ERA in 2003 with short-season Lowell and a 3.53 ERA in 19 starts with Double-A Portland in 2004 had placed Alvarez among Boston’s top left-handed prospects. The California native had accomplished much despite being legally blind in his left eye.4

He was not the first visually impaired person to play in the majors. Whammy Douglas lost one eyeball in a childhood accident that involved a stick; he pitched in 11 games for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1957.5 Claude Jonnard lost vision in one eye from a blow with a cane suffered while driving hogs as a boy; he later pitched for six years in the major leagues, mostly in relief, and led the National League in games pitched, games finished, and saves in 1923.6 Tom Sunkel was shot with a toy gun at age four and as a long-term result became blind in one eye at age 25; he pitched in the majors from 1937 to 1944.7

Alvarez was born with an infection in one eye. He was treated with eyedrops but the infection would not clear. After he stepped up to a stronger but more risky medication, his sight in the infected eye became worse. In 2004 he said he did not recall ever being able to see clearly.8

When he took the mound in the first inning, Alvarez wore his cap with the brim noticeably turned to his left side to balance the lighting in his blind eye.9 (The turned cap is present on some of his baseball cards and in his 2005 Red Sox Media Guide photo.) In a show of support, teammates Doug Mirabelli and Derek Lowe, seated in the dugout, wore their caps turned to the side like Alvarez.10

The Orioles, who had pummeled Boston ace Pedro Martínezfor eight runs in 6⅔ innings in a 10-5 win the previous night, had no trouble figuring out the rookie. Alvarez walked Brian Roberts to lead off the game. One out later, Melvin Mora doubled Roberts home and Tejada, playing in his 687th consecutive game,11 followed with a two-run home run over the wall in left. It was Tejada’s 18th homer of the season, a day after he had driven in five runs against Boston, and the O’s led 3-0 after one inning.

Baltimore’s starter, 28-year-old Rodrigo López, employed a knee-bending curveball.12 López began 2004 in the Orioles bullpen, recording a 0.33 ERA through 12 appearances. He was added to the starting rotation in May and had a 7-6 record and a 3.76 ERA entering the game.

López retired the first two Red Sox in the bottom of the first. Designated hitter David Ortiz13 then lined a 1-and-2 pitch that smacked the center-field wall a few inches to the right of the 379-foot marker. The ball took a sharp carom toward right with center fielder Karim García giving chase. As García fired the ball to the infield, a smiling Ortiz coasted in with a stand-up triple, his second three-base hit of the season.

López retired Manny Ramírez on a grounder to strand Ortiz at third. The Red Sox did score in the second, as Gabe Kapler singled in Nomar Garciaparra with two outs, cutting the deficit to 3-1. But Mora hit a solo home run, his 14th of the season, to deep right field off Alvarez in the third to restore Baltimore’s three-run lead.

With one out in the bottom of the third, Ortiz lashed a 2-and-2 pitch off López that banged off the bottom of the right-field wall a few feet past the right-field foul pole. It then caromed at a hard angle, reaching the corner of the visitors’ bullpen, where right fielder Jerry Hairston grabbed it.

As the throw came to the infield Ortiz accelerated and then flopped into third base. He easily beat the throw and rose to a kneeling position where he remained long after the play. TV analyst Jerry Remy quipped, “He just may stay down a while at third base. That’s probably the most he has run in a long time. Back-to-back triples.”14

But the Red Sox again failed to convert Ortiz’s triple into a run. Ramírez lined to shortstop and Garciaparra fouled out to right, with Hairston making a sliding catch.

Alvarez had pitched around two walks in the fourth, stranding the bases loaded when David Newhan grounded out. In the fifth he walked Mora and Tejada to start the inning. Two outs later, Hairston doubled Tejada home to make it 5-1. The Orioles would have scored another on the play but Javy Lopez was thrown out at the plate by Garciaparra. With that last out, the inning ended, and Alvarez’s debut was complete.

Brian Roberts smashed an RBI triple off Mark Malaska in the sixth inning to increase Baltimore’s lead to 6-1. Kevin Millar’s two-run home run off Buddy Groom in the eighth inning narrowed the gap, but Mora’s second homer of the game, a two-run blast to left against Ramiro Mendoza in the ninth, put the game out of reach.

The final score was Baltimore 8, Boston 3. The Orioles pounded out eight extra-base hits against three Boston pitchers.

After his outing, Alvarez talked to NESN’s Eric Freed about his performance. “Disappointed. Too many walks and that’s how the runs scored,” he said. “You go out there and try to throw strikes and it didn’t come out that way.”

The Red Sox rebounded for a 4-0 win in the night game. Tim Wakefield and two relievers allowed 10 hits but kept the Orioles scoreless.

Two days later, on July 24, the Yankees and Red Sox played a game in which Álex Rodriguez and Jason Varitek brawled, the catcher smashing his mitt into Rodriguez’s face, igniting the benches, bullpens, and Boston’s run to the postseason.15

Ortiz, who went on to receive AL Championship Series MVP honors for his role in the Red Sox’ historic comeback over the Yankees, set a career high with three triples that year. He finished his 20-season Hall of Fame career with just 19 triples.

The Orioles finished third in the AL East in 2004. Tejada’s consecutive-games streak ended in 2007 after reaching 1,152.16

Alvarez was returned to the minors and did not play again with Boston in 2004. Nevertheless, he was the youngest member of the Red Sox to receive a World Series ring that year. Alvarez pitched in two games for the 2005 Red Sox and one in 2006, all in relief. He retired from professional baseball in 2009 and went into coaching at the high-school and college levels.17

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Russ Walsh and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Abe Alvarez, 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/BOS200407221.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B07221BOS2004.htm

Notes

1 David Ginsburg, “Orioles, in Last Place, Scratching,”Baltimore Sun, July 15, 2004: 27.

2 Marc Craig, “Alvarez Couldn’t Hit His Spots in Start,” Boston Globe, July 23, 2004: E6.

3 2005 Red Sox Media Guide, player biography, 54.

4 Bob Hohler, “Gutierrez Acquired after Reese Lands on DL,” Boston Globe, July 22, 2004: E3.

5 Kevin Czerwinski, “’Whammy’ Racked Up Wins with One Eye: Douglas Set League Record in 1954, Despite Childhood Accident,” MILB.com, July 30, 2008, https://www.milb.com/news/gcs-438677.

6 Edward Balinger, “Pitcher Lost Eye While Driving Pig Toward Stockyard,” Pittsburgh Post, January 24, 1923: 9.

7 Some media accounts suggest that as many as eight men who were blind in one eye played in the big leagues. It has been written that the first was Bill Irwin, who pitched for the Reds in 1886, but I have been unable to substantiate that claim. Irvin Rudick, “Blind Eye Holds Ace Hurler Down,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 12, 1940: 8.

8 Brian Triplett, “Gangbanger? Try Honest Abe,” ESPN, September 7, 2004, https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=1873839.

9“Minor League Report, Long Beach State Players,” Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2006: 58.

10 NESN game telecast, “7/22/2004 Baltimore at Boston,” YouTube video (BrunoSox23), 4:00:40, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ0rvsSuyHo. Accessed July 16, 2024.

11 Joe Christensen, “After Split, O’s See Glass Half Full,” Baltimore Sun, July 23, 2004: 9.

12 Joe Christensen, “Bedard Savors First O’s Victory,” Baltimore Sun, May 21, 2004: 1D.

13 Ortiz had been suspended for five games on July 22 for pushing Francona into an umpire and throwing bats toward two umpires in a July 16 game. He appealed the suspension and it was reduced to three games. Bob Hohler, “Ortiz Appeals After Getting Five-Game Ban,” Boston Globe, July 24, 2004: E3.

14 Christensen, “Bedard Savors First O’s Victory.”

15 Rodriguez, Varitek, Tanyon Sturtze, Gabe Kapler, and Trot Nixon were given suspensions for their involvement in the brawl with the latter two players having their penalties waived on appeal. Randy Miller, “Alex Rodriguez, Jason Varitek Still Enemies,” nj.com, June 7, 2021, https://www.nj.com/yankees/2021/06/alex-rodriguez-jason-varitek-still-enemies-17-years-after-their-yankees-red-sox-brawl.html.

16 “Consecutive MLB Games Played Record,” Baseball-Almanac.com, accessed February 14, 2024, https://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats2.shtml.

17 “Pratt Names Alvarez New BYU Pitching Coach,” byucougars.com, July 18, 2022, https://byucougars.com/news/2022/07/19/pratt-names-alvarez-new-byu-pitching-coach.