July 8, 1994: John Valentin’s unassisted triple play and home run help Red Sox beat Mariners

The start of the second game of a four-game series between the Boston Red Sox and Seattle Mariners on July 8, 1994, was delayed by rain for just over an hour, but for the 33,355 fans at Fenway Park that night, it was worth the wait.

Their patience was rewarded with a memorable 4-3 Red Sox victory that included a historic sixth inning for 27-year-old shortstop John Valentin,1 the major-league debut of future superstar Alex Rodríguez,2 and three outstanding defensive plays to close out the game for the Red Sox.

Boston had been in first place in the American League East Division in early May but entered the game below .500 and in third, 9½ games behind the first-place New York Yankees. Seattle was third in the weak AL West, where all four teams had losing records.

The starting pitcher for Boston was Chris Nabholz, who was making his second start after being acquired from the Cleveland Indians a week earlier.3 In his first start for Boston, a 10-0 loss to the Oakland A’s, he was charged with the loss after giving up five runs in 4 1/3 innings.

In a battle of left-handers, Nabholz was opposed by Seattle’s Dave Fleming. Fleming had pitched well the previous two seasons for the Mariners but brought a 6-10 record into this game.

The big news for the Mariners was the highly anticipated arrival of their 18-year-old shortstop, Rodríguez, who had been the first overall pick in the June 1993 amateur draft and reached the majors after only 82 minor-league games.

Seattle manager Lou Piniella4 had been pushing for the Mariners front office to bring up Rodríguez. Piniella, who called Rodríguez “our shortstop of the future,” acknowledged, “One player isn’t going to turn this around, but it’s a step in the right direction.”5

Batting ninth, Rodríguez went hitless in three at-bats but handled his three chances in the field cleanly, including a stellar play on a grounder deep in the hole on which he demonstrated his strong arm.

It was a cool, overcast evening as the game began. Felix Fermin, moved from shortstop to second base when Rodríguez arrived in Seattle, received a one-out walk in the top of the first.

Ken Griffey Jr., whose 33 home runs led the majors6, singled to left field, moving Fermin to second. With Edgar Martinez at the plate, Fermin was thrown out trying to steal third, and the Mariners failed to score.

The Red Sox put their leadoff hitter on base in each of the first five innings, starting with Scott Fletcher’s single in the first. In the second, Tom Brunansky7 walked and Wes Chamberlain singled to put two runners on with none out. But Fleming, aided by an unsuccessful sacrifice attempt in the second, a caught stealing in the third, and a double play in the fifth, kept Boston scoreless through five innings.

Leading off the top of the third, Rodríguez made his first major-league plate appearance. Swinging at the first pitch, he hit a chopper to third. Scott Cooper, charging hard, completed the difficult play, getting Rodríguez at first.8

With two outs, Fermin singled on a line drive to center field. Griffey, who had received applause every plate appearance this series, drove Nabholz’s pitch deep to center field. The ball caromed off the angled portion of the wall back past Lee Tinsley, and Fermin scored the first run of the game while Griffey slid safely into third with a triple.

Griffey was stranded when Martinez struck out looking, but Seattle had a 1-0 lead.

The Mariners struck again in the fifth. Bill Haselman started the inning with a routine grounder to shortstop Valentin, whose throw to first was high and wide and sailed into the Red Sox dugout for a two-base error. Fermin’s two-out single brought in Haselman with an unearned run, increasing the Mariners’ lead to 2-0.

Fog began to roll in as the Mariners looked to expand their lead in the sixth against Nabholz. Mike Blowers singled, and Keith Mitchell walked.

With the count 1-and-1 on Marc Newfield, Seattle started the runners.

The designated hitter lined the ball at Valentin, who made a backhanded catch, then jogged to second and stepped on the base to double off Blowers.

Mitchell, who was at first running on the pitch, now was walking toward second with his head down, appearing to have given up on the play. Valentin transferred the ball from his glove to his bare hand and nonchalantly reached out and tagged Mitchell on the shoulder, completing the 10th unassisted triple play in major-league history.9

Trotting to the dugout, Valentin casually tossed the ball to the mound, his face showing no emotion. His routine manner while completing one of the rarest of all defensive plays probably contributed to the confusion in the ballpark. The subdued reaction from the crowd indicated that most people didn’t realize that Valentin had recorded three outs on the play.

As second-base umpire Matt Winans, who made all three out calls, remembered in a 2022 interview, “John Valentin and I were the only two people in the stadium who knew what was going on. I looked out into the outfield after calling the third out, and the outfielders were just standing there.”10

Valentin was confused by Mitchell’s giving up and not retreating toward first. “The guy didn’t run, so I thought there was one out,” Valentin said after the game. “I looked up to see the board and realized there was nobody out. So, I tagged him.”11

The Mariners TV broadcast reflected the overall confusion at Fenway. Play-by-play announcer Dave Niehaus expected Valentin to run and tag first. When Valentin flipped the ball to the mound after tagging Mitchell, color commentator Ron Fairly said, “Wait, wait a minute. Wait a minute! Wait, that’s only two outs!”12

Watching the replay and counting the outs, Fairly saw Valentin make his discreet tag on Mitchell and said, “Oh, oh, he tags him. Okay, that’s it.”

The fog thickened as Valentin led off the bottom of the sixth to applause from the Red Sox fans, who now realized they had witnessed an unassisted triple play. With the count 3-and-2, Valentin hit a low fly ball that barely cleared the wall in left for Boston’s first run of the game.13

As Valentin rounded the bases, Boston play-by-play announcer Sean McDonough exclaimed, “Well have yourself an inning Mr. Valentin!”

Only one other major leaguer had turned an unassisted triple play and hit a home run in the same inning: Neal Ball of the Cleveland Naps accomplished the feat in 1909.14

The Red Sox weren’t finished in the sixth. André Dawson followed with a double high off the Green Monster. This ended Fleming’s night as the Mariners, still clinging to a 2-1 lead, brought in Bill Risley.

The first batter he faced was Brunansky, who put the Red Sox up by one with a home run to left, clearing the wall just inside the foul pole.

Two outs later, Red Sox catcher Rich Rowland made it a 4-2 game with Boston’s third home run of the inning.

The next two innings were scoreless, and Nabholz, looking for his first victory with the Red Sox, went back out for the ninth having already thrown 112 pitches. Blowers led off with a home run, cutting the lead to one run.

Boston manager Butch Hobson called on closer Ken Ryan, who had thrown 43 pitches the night before, receiving a blown save and the loss as the Red Sox lost to the Mariners in 10 innings.

The first batter Ryan faced was Mitchell, who smashed a grounder to Cooper’s left at third. Cooper made a diving stop and threw out Mitchell, as first baseman Tim Naehring dug the throw out of the dirt.

Newfield – who had hit into the triple play in his previous at-bat – drove a ball into the gap in right-center field. Following a long run, Tinsley left his feet to make a diving catch. He held onto the ball despite a jarring landing. Tinsley remained on the ground for over a minute, as the Boston trainer attended to him, but remained in the game.

With the Mariners down to their last out, pinch-hitter Reggie Jefferson, batting for Haselman, made a bid to tie the game by driving the ball deep to right-center field toward the Red Sox bullpen.

Both Tinsley and right fielder Chamberlain ran to the wall and leaped. Chamberlain reached far above the top of the wall and into the bullpen to snare the ball, robbing Jefferson of a game-tying home run.

Chamberlain punctuated his incredible catch with high fives with his bullpen teammates as the whole team celebrated their exciting 4-3 victory.15

Valentin played 10 of his 11 seasons with Boston, batting .281with 121 home runs in 991 games.16 He was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2010. On a night of rain delay, historic moments, and game-saving defensive plays in July 1994, Valentin’s remarkable sixth inning made the game worth the wait for Boston players and fans.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Russ Walsh and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author is grateful to second-base umpire Matt Winans for his willingness to take part in a phone interview on November 8, 2022.

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. The Boston Red Sox television broadcast on WSBK-TV, posted on YouTube, was used for game descriptions. The Seattle Mariners television broadcast of the unassisted triple play on KSTW-TV, posted on YouTube, was also used for the description of that play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS199407080.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1994/B07080BOS1994.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0D-UB1T6gg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXJuw4Rd0ck         

Notes

1 Valentin was in his third season with the Red Sox. He was drafted in the fifth round of the 1988 June amateur draft out of Seton Hall University.

2 Rodríguez, who celebrated his 19th birthday on July 27, 19 days after this game, was the first 18-year-old to play in the major leagues since José Rijo pitched for the New York Yankees in April 1984.

3 The 27-year-old Nabholz was acquired by Cleveland before the 1994 season. He spent time on the disabled list with a muscle strain in his left side and pitched only 11 innings for the Indians. He had just completed his rehab stint with Cleveland’s Triple-A team in Charlotte when he was traded to Boston with Steve Farr for Jeff Russell on July 1, 1994. United Press International, “Indians, Red Sox Trade Pitchers,” https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/07/02/Indians-Red-Sox-trade-pitchers/1509773121600/, July 2, 1994. Boston GM Dan Duquette had been in the Montreal Expos front office and was familiar with Nabholz, who was a productive pitcher for Montreal from 1990 to 1993.

4 Piniella was in his second season managing the Mariners. The previous season the team had a winning record for only the second time in its 17 years of existence.

5 Jim Street, “Seattle Mariners,” The Sporting News, July 18, 1994: 32.

6 Griffey was drafted out of Archbishop Moeller High School in Cincinnati in 1987. Like Rodríguez, he was a first overall draft pick by Seattle. In 1994 Griffey was 24 and in his sixth season with the Mariners. He was already a five-time All-Star. Going into the game he had hit 33 home runs that season which, according to Sean McDonough on the Boston television broadcast, put him at the same pace as Roger Maris’s record-setting home-run season in 1961.

7 Brunansky was 33 years old and had been with the Red Sox for three weeks after he was picked up in a trade with the Milwaukee Brewers for catcher Dave Valle. Brunansky finished his career in 1994 with 48 games with the Red Sox.

8 Rodríguez got his first major-league hit the next night in the fourth inning. His first hit, like his first at-bat, was also a slow-bounding ball that Cooper charged hard, making the throw on the run, but Rodríguez was able to beat that one out for his first of 3,115 career hits. Seattle Mariners television broadcast (KSTW-TV), “A-Rod Singles to Third for Career Hit No. 1,” YouTube video (MLB.com), 1:00, accessed January 18, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isJRVwZRa8c.

9 Major League Baseball does not recognize the triple play that occurred on May 8, 1878, as unassisted. Major League Baseball official historian John Thorn believes Paul Hines of the Providence Grays should be credited with an unassisted triple play. If the Hines triple play is included, Valentin’s would be the 11th unassisted triple play.

10 Matt Winans, telephone interview, November 8, 2022. Winans had a 10-year minor-league umpiring career. In 1994, at the age of 30, he was called up as a replacement for absent umpires and worked 28 games in the American League with four different crews. He was never added to the league’s permanent umpiring staff. In this series he was filling in for Terry Craft on a crew with Jim Joyce, Ed Hickox, and Jim McKean. Winans’ first and last games in the American League that season were May 26 and August 11. He never returned to the major leagues.

11 Associated Press, “Valentin Pulls Off Unassisted Triple Play,” New York Times, July 9, 1994: 27.

12 Seattle Mariners television broadcast (KSTW-TV), “John Valentin Turns a Smooth Unassisted Triple Play,” YouTube video (MLB.com), 1:14, accessed January 18, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXJuw4Rd0ck.

13 That was the sixth home run of the season for Valentin, who had nine for the year.

14 Ball, playing shortstop for the Naps, turned the first unassisted triple play in the twentieth century. It occurred against the Red Sox in the second inning on July 19, 1909. After his unassisted triple play, Ball batted with two outs in the bottom of the second and hit a first-pitch home run. It was his first major-league home run and the only one he hit that season.

15 On August 12 the Major League Baseball Players Association went on strike; the remainder of the 1994 season was subsequently canceled. The Red Sox were 54-61 and in fourth place in the AL East, 17 games behind the Yankees, at the time of the strike. The Mariners were third in the AL West at 49-63, two games behind the Texas Rangers.

16 Valentin finished his career playing one season for the New York Mets. His career batting average was .279 with 124 home runs.