October 16, 2007: Red Sox hit three consecutive homers, but lose Game 4 to Cleveland

Each team had one big inning in Game Four of the 2007 American League Championship Series, but the Cleveland Indians’ seven-run fifth-inning explosion outshined the Boston Red Sox’ back-to-back-to-back homer barrage in the sixth. With their 7-3 win in Game Four, the Indians took a three-games-to-one lead in the ALCS, putting themselves one win from their first World Series berth since 1997.

It was Tuesday night at Jacobs Field. Pitching for Eric Wedge’s Indians was Paul Byrd. For Terry Francona and the Red Sox it was Tim Wakefield.

The 36-year-old Byrd had first pitched in the majors in 1995, and the Indians were his sixth team.1 He was 15-8 with a 4.59 ERA in 2007, his second year with Cleveland. He’d won the clinching Game Four of the AL Division Series, beating the New York Yankees while allowing two runs in five innings.

Wakefield, who had celebrated his 41st birthday in August, had reached the major leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1992 and won two National League Championship Series games that season. It was now the knuckleballer’s 13th year with the Red Sox, dating to 1995. He had been 17-12 (4.76) in 2007.

He’d pitched in 16 previous postseason games, with a record of 5-5.2 One of the wins came on three innings of extra-inning relief against the Yankees in Game Five of the 2004 AL Championship Series, when the Red Sox won four straight games to seize an improbable pennant. He was making his first appearance in the 2007 postseason after upper back tightness kept him off the Red Sox roster for the ALDS against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

In the first inning, Byrd retired the Red Sox in order. Wakefield walked leadoff batter Grady Sizemore. After Asdrúbal Cabrera struck out, Sizemore stole second, but Travis Hafner struck out, too, and Victor Martínez lined out to right.

Manny Ramírez singled to lead off the Red Sox second, but got no farther than second base. In the bottom of the inning, Wakefield struck out his third and fourth batters while retiring the Indians in order.

In the third, Byrd gave up back-to-back two-out singles to Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis, but David Ortiz grounded into a force play at second. A leadoff walk went nowhere for the Indians.

J.D. Drew got a two-out single for the Red Sox in the fourth but was stranded. Wakefield started the bottom of the inning by striking out his sixth batter. One out later, Jhonny Peralta doubled off the left-field wall for the Indians’ first hit, but Wakefield retired 40-year-old Kenny Lofton on a grounder to end the inning.

Byrd retired the Red Sox in order in the top of the fifth, and the game then turned on Cleveland’s big inning. The first batter for the Indians, Casey Blake, homered off Wakefield onto the left-field deck. “I got lucky there,” Blake said after the game. Hit it on the barrel.”3

Franklin Gutierrez singled to left and Kelly Shoppach was hit by a pitch. Sizemore made the first out, grounding into a force play at second. Cabrera singled off Wakefield’s glove, and a run scored. Hafner struck out for the third time in three at-bats, but Martínez singled between third and short and the Indians had their third run.

Manny Delcarmen relieved Wakefield.4 The first batter he faced was Peralta, who hit a three-run homer off the top of the right-field wall. That made it 6-0, Cleveland. The Indians got one more run before the inning was over. Lofton singled, then stole second. Blake hit a bloop single into center (his second hit of the inning, and second RBI), and Lofton scored.5 A base on balls followed, but Delcarmen was able to get the third out.

It was the second time in four games that the Indians had scored seven times in one inning; they had matched the seven they had scored in the top of the 11th in Game Two in Boston.

“Casey got us rolling,” said Victor Martínez. “Then we just exploded. There’s no way to explain those innings.”6

What happened next also defied explanation. The first three hitters to bat in the Red Sox sixth all hit home runs, one after the other. Youkilis hit one to left, Ortiz hit one over the fence in right, and then (after Jensen Lewis relieved Byrd), Manny Ramirez hit one into the visitors bullpen.7 These were, of course, all solo home runs, so despite the concentrated firepower, the Indians still led, 7-3. Lewis got outs from the next three batters.

It was the first time in LCS history that three batters had gone back-to-back-to-back. “Whoopee,” wrote a sardonic Jackie MacMullan in the Boston Globe, “Too bad the game was over by then.”8

Jon Lester took over on the mound for the Red Sox in the sixth. He walked Sizemore, struck out the next two batters, and then picked Sizemore off first – but Youkilis committed a rare error at first base and Sizemore got to second. The batter, Martinez, flied out.

Hardly anyone even reached base the rest of the game. Varitek singled to lead off the Boston seventh, but a double play took him out. Lester retired the Indians in order in the bottom of the inning.

In the eighth, Rafael Betancourt pitched for Cleveland. Three fly-ball outs followed, albeit one hit to the right-field warning track by Youkilis. Lester allowed a one-out single to Shoppach but nothing came of it.

In the top of the ninth, Betancourt faced three batters and got them all out, too, on a foul popup to the catcher, a fly ball to left and a line-drive out to first base. That wrapped up the game, and a 7-3 win for Cleveland.

The Indians now had won three in a row and stood just one win away from advancing to the World Series. After a scheduled day off on October 17, the Indians could wrap it up at home and not have to travel back to Boston. Game Five was to feature a rematch of the aces who had pitched in Game One – CC Sabathia for the Indians and Josh Beckett for the Red Sox.

Victor Martínez was well aware that the Indians needed one more win. “We all know what the Red Sox did in 2004 when they came back against the Yankees,” he said. “We’re up 3-1, but it doesn’t mean anything. We’ve got to finish them off. If we don’t finish them off, it doesn’t mean anything.”9

Famously, the 2004 Red Sox had been down three games to none against the Yankees, yet still prevailed. Four more teams had come back from three-games-to-one LCS deficits, including the Red Sox against the Angels in 1986.10

Meanwhile, in Denver, the Colorado Rockies completed a sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLCS. They had won 21 of their last 22 games, including seven consecutive postseason victories.11

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Madison McEntire 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. Thanks to Joe Wancho for supplying clippings from Cleveland newspapers.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE200710160.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2007/B10160CLE2007.htm

Photo credit: Jhonny Peralta, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Byrd had two stints with Atlanta.

2 Wakefield had faced the Indians four times in the postseason, including losses as the Red Sox starter in Game Three of the 1995 ALDS and Game Two of the 1998 ALDS.

3 Bob Ryan, “Nothing Odd Here, and Nothing Even,” Boston Globe, October 17, 2007: D4.

4 It was the third game in succession in which the Red Sox starter had gone just 4⅔ innings.

5 It was the 11th time in League Championship Series history that a player had two base hits in one inning. Jodie Valade, “Blake Finds His Swing at Just the Right Time,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 17, 2007: D6.

6 Paul Hoynes, “Boomtown/Seven-Run 5th Powers Tribe to Cusp of Series,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 17, 2007: D1.

7 Gordon Edes wrote that it was only the second time in postseason history that three teammates had done that. Edes, “White-Knuckle Time,” Boston Globe, October 17, 2007: D6.

8 Jackie MacMullan, “It’s Hit or (Mostly) Miss Once Again,” Boston Globe, October 17, 2007: D3.

9 Hoynes. The 2007 Red Sox had eight players who had been on the 2004 ALCS roster.

10 The other teams to overcome 3-1 LCS deficits were the 1985 Kansas City Royals against the Toronto Blue Jays, the 1996 Atlanta Braves against the St. Louis Cardinals, and the 2003 Florida Marlins against the Chicago Cubs. Matt Kelly, “These Teams Overcame 3-1 Deficits in the Postseason,” MLB.com, November 1, 2023, https://www.mlb.com/news/3-to-1-deficit-baseball-playoff-rallies-c297350110.

11 The Red Sox won the final three games, outscoring Cleveland 30-5, to reach the World Series, in which they swept the Rockies in four games for the seventh World Series title in franchise history.