May 6, 2013: Stephen Drew’s 11th-inning walk-off double puts Red Sox on winning track

After going 18-8 in April, the 2013 Red Sox (who had finished last in the American League East Division in 2012) had lost three of their first five games in May, being swept in a weekend series against the Rangers in Texas. Back home on Monday, May 6, and still in first place, the Red Sox were hoping to get back on track.  

The visiting Minnesota Twins were fourth in the AL Central Division. Manager Ron Gardenhire was pleased to see his team score two runs in the top of the first off Red Sox righty Clay Buchholz, particularly since Buchholz was off to a spectacular start, winning every one of his first six outings. He had a 1.01 ERA after those six starts.

The second batter Buchholz faced, catcher Joe Mauer, doubled to left. Next up was left fielder Josh Willingham, who drove in Mauer with another double to left. First baseman Justin Morneau then singled up the middle and drove in Willingham for a 2-0 Minnesota lead. The next two batters drew walks, loading the bases, but Buchholz buckled down and struck out two to get out of the inning.

Vance Worley was the Twins pitcher, a right-hander in his first season in the AL after three years with the Philadelphia Phillies. In contrast to Buchholz’s fast start, he had lost all four of his decisions in the young season. Red Sox right fielder Shane Victorino singled with one out in the bottom of the first, but second baseman Dustin Pedroia followed with an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play.

Neither team got a man on base in the second, nor did the Twins in the top of the third. Boston catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia doubled down the left-field line to lead off the bottom of the third but did not score.

Back-to-back doubles by the two batters Buchholz had struck out to close the first inning— Oswaldo Arcia and Aaron Hicks—gave Minnesota another run in the top of the fourth and a 3-0 advantage. The Red Sox got one run back, though, when Victorino homered down the line in right to lead off the bottom of the fourth.

The Twins took a 4-1 lead in the fifth on a ground-rule double by Mauer, a single by Willingham, and a sacrifice fly by Morneau.

Boston got its second run in the bottom of the inning. Left fielder Daniel Nava doubled and Worley struck out the next two, bringing up shortstop Stephen Drew, a 30-year-old veteran who had signed with the Red Sox as a free agent in December 2012.1

Sidelined by a concussion for the first seven games of the 2013 season, Drew was in his 21st game for the Red Sox. He entered batting only .182, with a .589 OPS. But here Drew singled, driving in Nava and cutting the deficit to 4-2.

Drew tried to bring Boston even closer when Jacoby Ellsbury doubled, but he was thrown out at the plate on center fielder Hicks’ throw and shortstop Pedro Florimon’s relay.

Buchholz retired the Twins in order in the sixth. The first two Red Sox singled in the bottom of the inning, but after Brian Duensing relieved Worley, David Ortiz hit into a 3-6-1 double play. The lead runner, Victorino, took third and scored when first baseman Mike Napoli singled to right, making it a 4-3 game.

Alex Wilson relieved Buchholz, and then Andrew Miller relieved Wilson and struck out a pair of Twins to close a scoreless seventh. Casey Fien took over from Duensing and the second batter he faced was Drew, who homered to deep right, tying the score at 4-4.

Fien only pitched to one batter in the eighth—Pedroia, who wrapped up a 10-pitch at-bat with a home run to left field, his first of the season—giving the Red Sox a lead for the first time in the game, 5-4. Anthony Swarzak took over pitching and allowed a double but no more runs.

The Red Sox had scored one run in each inning from the fourth through the eighth. That gave them five, one more than they needed heading into the ninth. But the Twins tied it up. Joel Hanrahan, meant to be the closer for manager John Farrell and the Red Sox after coming from the Pittsburgh Pirates in an offseason trade, was tagged for a long solo home run to left-center by second baseman Brian Dozier. The score was 5-5.

It was Hanrahan’s second blown save—and, with a 9.82 ERA, his last appearance of the season. He left suffering tightness in his right forearm and just a few days later had Tommy John surgery. Stepping in to fill the void was Koji Uehara, who appeared in 70 games for the 2013 team, with 21 saves and an impressive 1.09 ERA. He struck out 101 opposing batters and walked only nine. 

Clay Mortensen finished up the inning for Boston. Swarzak surrendered a one-out single to Drew but got Ellsbury to hit into a double play and the game went to the 10th.

Mortenson walked two but then got out of the inning with no harm done. Swarzak shut down the Red Sox in the bottom of the 10th. Mortensen allowed a harmless single in the top of the 11th.

Jared Burton was Gardenhire’s next reliever, to work the 11th. He got two outs but then Saltalamacchia reached on an infield squibber hit to Burton’s right. By the time Burton fielded the ball, with Saltalamacchia running hard, the pitcher’s throw to first was a little off-target and a little late, even with the slow runner.2 Will Middlebrooks lined a single into left-center with Saltalamacchia taking second base.

Up came Drew, already 3-for-4 in the game. He doubled off the wall in left-center. Playing the ball was backup catcher Ryan Doumit, who had pinch-hit in the top of the ninth and stayed in to play left field in lieu of Willingham, who had himself been replaced by a pinch-runner. Gardenhire said that Doumit “had to run quite a ways going into a metal wall out there. And I don’t expect my backup catcher to do that. That’s not an easy play for an everyday guy.”3

Saltalamacchia scored easily and the game was over, the third walk-off win for the Red Sox.4 For Drew, it was his third run batted in of the game.

Drew was the regular shortstop for Boston in 2013, playing in 124 games. His big night against the Twins turned his season around; from May 6 onward, he batted .266 with an .810 OPS.

Mortenson got the win, having allowed just one hit in 2⅓ innings of relief. He noted that the team had just returned home from being swept in Texas by the Rangers. It was “huge for our team, coming off a tough series from Texas and come home and win a late one like this, it’s huge. So we’re all feeling pretty good in here right now. So just try and swing that momentum back and get back on a roll.” Having kept pitching, the very next day after the Rangers had dealt him a loss with their own walk-off 4-3 win on the road. “You find it somewhere, man. I felt great, actually, surprisingly. You get in the moment and you just find it somewhere.”5

This win, though, was followed by the Twins taking each of the next three games, 6-1, 15-8, and 5-3. The Red Sox never lost more than three games in a row at any point in 2013, but there were three stretches of three-game losses between May 3 and May 14. Over those 12 days, the Red Sox were 2-9, dropping them out of first place for most of the month, but they soon righted themselves and finished May as they began it, leading the AL East, on their way to a World Series title.6

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner 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. A video of the game-winning hit can be seen on YouTube. Thanks to Stew Thornley for supplying Twin Cities newspaper coverage.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS201305060.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2013/B05060BOS2013.htm

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

Notes

1 Drew’s older brother, right fielder J.D. Drew, had played the last five of his 14 years in the majors with the Red Sox, from 2007 through 2011, hitting .313 in the 2007 postseason and earning a World Series championship ring that year. There was a need for a shortstop after the Red Sox traded Mike Aviles in November.

2 Of Burton, LaVelle Neal wrote, “[H]is throw pulled Justin Morneau” off the bag. LaVelle E. Neal III, “Burton’s Bad Toss Is Costly in the End,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, May 7, 2013: C1.

3 Neal.

4 The video on YouTube shows that Drew did indeed run all the way to second base.

5 Nick Cafardo, “Drew Takes Sox for Quite a Ride,” Boston Globe, May 7, 2013: C1.

6 In one sense, Stephen Drew joined his brother by earning a World Series ring of his own with the 2013 Red Sox.