July 9, 1995: Rangers overcome 6 errors, beat Yankees to move into first-place tie

In their first 22 seasons after relocating from Washington, DC, in 1972, the Texas Rangers finished second in the American League West six times yet never captured a division title.1 In 1994 they moved from Arlington Stadium to The Ballpark in Arlington and were in first place2 – with a record of just 52-62 – when the season was halted and eventually canceled by Commissioner Bud Selig when the players strike could not be resolved in a timely manner.

In 1995 Texas hovered within striking distance for much of the first half, leading by one game on multiple occasions. At 38-30 they trailed the California Angels by a game when they took on the New York Yankees in the final game of a four-game series leading into the All-Star Game, which would be played in Arlington.3

The Yankees, accustomed to winning AL pennants and World Series titles, were also in a drought. Since losing the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1981, the Yankees had not won the AL East – but had finished second on three occasions, most recently in 1993 when they began to assemble the squad that would win three consecutive World Series at the end of the decade.

Like Texas, the Yankees were leading their division – with an AL-best record of 70-43 – when the 1994 season ended prematurely. They entered this game with a disappointing record of 30-35 and in fourth place in the AL East, seven games behind the first-place Boston Red Sox.

With All-Star festivities to begin the next day, a Sunday afternoon crowd of 31,893 braved 100-degree heat to watch a matchup of rookie pitchers.

Texas started 26-year-old left-hander Terry Burrows, who was 2-1 with a 6.54 ERA in 31⅔ innings in 21 games. Five days earlier he had made his first start of the season and lasted 3⅓ innings in a Rangers’ win at Cleveland.

New York’s starting pitcher was a 25-year-old right-hander from Panama who was making the sixth of what would be just 10 major-league starts – but who ended his career as the most dominant relief pitcher in major-league history and was elected to the Hall of Fame by a unanimous vote in 2019. Since his debut on May 23, Mariano Rivera was 2-2 with a 6.65 ERA in five starts.4 His previous start was the best to date – he allowed just two hits and struck out 11 in eight innings in a road win against the Chicago White Sox.

After Burrows and Rivera each pitched a perfect frame, the Rangers’ fielding miscues began in the second inning. Third baseman Mike Pagliarulo, a former Yankee playing in what turned out to be his final big-league season, committed a throwing error on Gerald Williams’s one-out grounder. With Don Mattingly at the plate, however, Williams was picked off by Burrows and caught stealing. Mattingly struck out to end the inning.

Two-time home-run king Juan González homered on the third pitch of the second inning, his 12th of the season, to put Texas ahead, 1-0, then Rivera needed just more eight pitches to retire Mickey Tettleton, Pagliarulo, and Jeff Frye.

The Rangers’ fielding woes continued in the third. Jim Leyritz led off with a single. One out later, Pat Kelly hit a likely double-play ball to Pagliarulo, but second baseman Frye dropped the throw to second. Bernie Williams followed with a line-drive single to center to score Leyritz and move Kelly to third.

Tony Fernández grounded to shortstop Benji Gil, who forced Williams at second, but Frye’s relay to first was wide of Tettleton. Kelly scored on Frye’s second error of the inning, and Fernández went to second.

Paul O’Neill singled on the next pitch to score Fernández for a 3-1 Yankees lead. Burrows walked Danny Tartabull, Despite all three runs being unearned, Burrows had allowed three hits and a walk in the inning and was replaced by rookie Chris Nichting, who had just seven previous big-league appearances.

On Nichting’s first pitch, the Yankees loaded the bases when Pagliarulo committed his second error of the game on Gerald Williams’s grounder to third. Mattingly also swung at the first pitch and grounded to Tettleton, who tossed to Nichting covering first base to escape the jam.

Rivera followed with three scoreless frames, allowing a two-out baserunner in each: a bunt single by Otis Nixon in the third, a double by Tettleton in the fourth, and a single by Gil in the fifth.

Nichting was also effective in his next three innings. He walked Russ Davis with one out in the fourth and then Kelly reached on an error by Frye – his third of the game – before Bernie Williams fouled out to third and Fernández struck out. In the fifth, Nichting survived singles by Tartabull and Mattingly and then worked around a sixth-inning leadoff single by Davis.

The Rangers rallied against Rivera in the sixth. Mark McLemore led off with a single to center and scored on González’s one-out triple to right.5 Davis misplayed Tettleton’s grounder to third for an error, allowing González to score and tie the game, 3-3.

New York retook the lead in the seventh against reliever Kevin Gross. With two outs, Gerald Williams doubled to center. After Mattingly was walked intentionally, Leyritz was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Future Hall of Famer Wade Boggs came off the bench to hit for Davis. Known for his keen batting eye, the five-time AL batting champion drew a walk on a full-count pitch to plate Williams and give New York a 4-3 lead.

Bob Wickman took over for Rivera to start the seventh; the rookie finished with three earned runs allowed on six hits with two strikeouts and no walks. Wickman walked Gil, McLemore, and Rusty Greer before retiring González on a first-pitch grounder to Fernández to keep the Yankees in front.

Tettleton jumped on Wickman’s first pitch in the eighth inning and slammed his 200th career home run to center field, tying the game at 4-4.6

After Gross and Wickman each threw a perfect ninth, Boggs, who had taken over at third base, started the 10th with a single against Texas reliever Ed Vosberg. But the Yankees failed to score. In the bottom half, Wickman retired González on a grounder to third and was removed in favor of veteran left-hander Steve Howe, who set down Tettleton and pinch-hitter Luis Ortiz.

The Yankees threatened in the 11th. O’Neill led off with a groundball single to left. Vosberg had  him picked off first base but his throwing error – the sixth Texas error of the game – allowed O’Neill to advance to second. With one out, Gerald Williams walked to put two on, before Mattingly popped to first and Leyritz flied to right to end the inning.

In the bottom half, Frye led off with a walk and went to second on Howe’s wild pitch. Iván Rodríguez, who had a pinch-hit single for starting catcher Dave Valle in the eighth, singled again to put two on with no outs. Howe worked out of trouble by striking out Gil and getting Nixon to bounce into a 4-3 double play.  

Vosberg set New York down in order in the 12th. McLemore started the bottom of the frame with a walk on a full-count pitch. Greer bunted back to Howe. McLemore had to wait to see if the ball would be caught, giving Howe a chance to force the lead runner at second base and possibly turn a double play.7 He threw to first instead as McLemore moved into scoring position.

After González was intentionally walked, Tettleton – who had suffered through a 1-for-26 stretch in mid-June that dropped his batting average to .215 – bounced a single to left to bring in McLemore with the winning run.

The win was the Rangers’ 11th in their final at-bat and their sixth in extra innings.8 Coupled with the Angels’ loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, the victory moved Texas into a tie for first place at the All-Star break for only the fourth time in team history.9

“This team goes out and plays hard every day, and doesn’t quit during a game,” said Greer. “If you don’t quit, good things will happen.”10

“I would be willing to guess that any of those other clubs in first place did not overcome the adversity we have,” said Texas manager Johnny Oates. “I don’t know who won that ballgame. The Yankees lost it more than we won it. Neither team looked like they wanted to win out there.”11

Yankees manager Buck Showalter agreed. “We did our share of things poorly, too. We squandered away chances. We did things we can’t do in the second half if we want to get back in it.”12

After the All-Star break, the Yankees and Rangers went in different directions. Texas scuffled to a 35-40 mark to end up 74-70 and in third place in the AL West. New York finished 49-29, the second-best record in the majors behind Cleveland’s 54-23 mark.

New York’s 79-65 overall record13 earned the Yankees the AL wild-card spot. After winning the first two games at Yankee Stadium, they suffered a heartbreaking loss in the ALDS to the Seattle Mariners14 when Edgar Martinez doubled home Joey Cora and Ken Griffey Jr. in the bottom of the 11th inning in the deciding Game Five.

Author’s Note

The author attended this game with three friends on their trip to the 1995 All-Star Game. The day after the game, they enjoyed Fanfest and the Home Run Derby, won by Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox. While at the Home Run Derby the author had his picture taken with ESPN baseball analyst Peter Gammons. The next day they watched the NL overcome a two-run homer by Thomas to beat the AL by a score of 3-2 on solo homers by Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza, and Jeff Conine.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the references cited in the Notes, the author consulted data from Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TEX/TEX199507090.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1995/B07090TEX1995.htm

Notes

1 The closest to first place Texas had finished in a full season was five games back, which they did in 1974, 1978, and 1986. They also finished five games back when they finished third in 1979. In the strike-interrupted season of 1981, the Rangers finished 1½ games behind Oakland in the first-half standings. In the second-half standings they ended in third place, 4½ games behind Kansas City.

2 With the introduction of the wild card in 1995, the American League Central Division was formed, and the AL West was reduced to four teams.

3 New York’s Wade Boggs and Texas catcher Iván Rodríguez were starters for the American League All-Stars, who were managed by Yankees skipper Buck Showalter.

4 In the minors from High-A through Triple-A, Rivera compiled an excellent record exclusively as a starting pitcher. After 10 starts in 19 appearances for New York in 1995, Rivera found himself in the spring training of 1996 competing against veterans Andy Pettitte, Kenny Rogers, Dwight Gooden, Jimmy Key, and David Cone for a spot in the Yankees’ starting rotation. He willingly moved to the bullpen and collected five saves in 1996, including the first of his career in his 34th career game on May 17. However, his role was serving as the setup man for closer John Wetteland, who would save an AL-best 43 games in the 1996 regular season and all four of New York’s wins in the Yankees’ 1996 World Series victory on his way to being named World Series Most Valuable Player. After New York let Wetteland leave as a free agent after the 1996 season, Rivera assumed the role of closer in 1997. He struggled early, blowing three of his first six save opportunities, before becoming the most dominant reliever in major-league history and retiring in 2013 with a major-league record 652 saves.

5 The hit looked as though it would be a routine single but upon landing took a hop and skipped past O’Neill in right. John Harper, “Yanks Take Early Break,” New York Daily News, July 19, 1995.

6 Highlights of the game, including Tettleton’s home run, can be seen here starting 7:32 into the video. ESPN SportsCenter, “1995 MLB Highlights July 9,” YouTube video (SW561), 13:00, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxVrjn-0R7I.

7 Simon González, “First Half Ends with Typical Escape,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 10, 1995: 1C.

8 González.

9 González.

10 González.

11 González.

12 Bob Hertzel, “Howe Fumes Over Defeat,” The Record (Hackensack, New Jersey), July 10, 1995: 9.

13 New York also had a 1-1 tie against the Chicago White Sox on July 17 in a game halted by rain in the seventh inning.

14 The Mariners trailed the Angels by 13 games in the AL West on August 2 before rallying to take a three-game lead on September 26 before California caught them on the last day of the regular season. The teams met in a tiebreaking game the next day and Seattle claimed its first playoff appearance in franchise history with a 9-1 win behind a complete game from Randy Johnson. The Yankees, second in the AL East, won the AL wild card because they had a better record than second-place California.