October 2, 2004: Alan Embree earns hold number 20, with Byun-Hyung Kim getting his second win

Starters for the next-to-last game of the 2004 season were Pedro Astacio for the Boston Red Sox and Sidney Ponson for the Baltimore Orioles. The outcome wasn’t going to affect either team’s place in the American League East standings. The Red Sox began the day 3½ games behind the first-place New York Yankees, with two games to play. The Orioles were third, 22½ games behind the Yankees but eight games ahead of the fourth-place Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

This was the second game of two on Saturday, October 2, a dual-admission doubleheader at Camden Yards. The afternoon game was the makeup of a rainout on July 27. The two games drew particularly well for a team that was no longer in the running – 48,540 for the first game and 47,320 for the evening game. As is often the case when the Boston team plays at Camden Yards, a sizable percentage of the crowd was Red Sox fans.

The Red Sox won the first game, 7-5, scoring six runs in the second inning before making an out. Starter Bronson Arroyo threw three scoreless innings with just one hit, a tune-up for the upcoming Division Series.1 Terry Adams, the second of six Boston pitchers, got the win with two innings of relief, giving him a record of 6-4. Daniel Cabrera absorbed the loss; Cabrera had, though, won 12 games for the Orioles in his first season in the majors. Red Sox center fielder Johnny Damon had three RBIs, two of them on a single in the second inning. His other one was in the third inning, on a run-producing groundout.

Second-game starter Astacio, who had debuted with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1992 and won 118 games with four big-league clubs in 13 seasons, had signed with Boston as a free agent in July and made his 2004 debut on September 8. He entered with no decisions and an ERA of 11.57 in four appearances totaling 4⅔ innings.

Nearly six months earlier, Ponson had opened the season by beating Boston at Camden Yards on April 4. After the 27-year-old right-hander began this start by retiring the first three Red Sox he faced, his Orioles teammates jumped on Astacio for four runs in the bottom of the first. Second baseman Brian Roberts led off with a single. After a line-drive out to right field, Roberts stole second and scored on shortstop Miguel Tejada’s single to left. First baseman Rafael Palmeiro singled, too, and the designated hitter, Javy Lopez, hit a three-run homer to left field.

Ponson walked David Ortiz on four pitches to start the Red Sox second, but a double play and a groundout ended the inning. For the Orioles, a leadoff single by center fielder Tim Raines Jr. went for naught as Astacio secured outs from the next three batters.

Trailing 4-0, Boston got on the scoreboard in the top of the fourth. With one out, DH Kevin Millar singled. Ortiz doubled, and Millar scored when the next batter, right fielder Trot Nixon, grounded out, short to first.

After Astacio pitched the first four innings, Red Sox manager Terry Francona gave Scott Williamson an inning of work in the fifth, and Baltimore added to its lead. Right fielder David Newhan singled and stole second base. After Tejada struck out, Newhan stole third. On eight pitches, Williamson walked Palmeiro. On five, he walked Lopez. Left fielder Larry Bigbie grounded into a force at second, first baseman Ortiz throwing to shortstop Orlando Cabrera, while Newhan scored. It was 5-1, Orioles.

Second baseman Mark Bellhorn singled off Ponson to start the sixth for the Red Sox. Millar flied out. Ortiz singled. Nixon flied out. Orlando Cabrera hit a three-run homer to left field to bring Boston within a run.2 It was Orioles 5, Red Sox 4. Since being traded from the Montreal Expos to the Red Sox at the end of July, Cabrera had provided solid defense at shortstop and now had 31 runs batted in.

Ponson closed out the inning, and Francona went to his bullpen again. Byung-Hyun Kim relieved Williamson. There were a few other changes as well. Sandy Martínez took over as catcher, Ricky Gutierrez replaced Cabrera at short, and Doug Mientkiewicz took over first base, giving Ortiz the rest of the day off. Kim retired the side in the bottom of the sixth on five pitches.

Jason Grimsley relieved Ponson in the seventh. After striking out left fielder Gabe Kapler, he walked center fielder Dave Roberts, who stole second base and scored when Bellhorn singled to left, tying the game, 5-5.

Grimsley hit Millar with his next pitch; it was the league-leading 17th time in 2004 Millar was hit by a pitch.3 Manager Lee Mazzilli brought on Buddy Groom to relieve Grimsley. Mientkiewicz tripled, driving in Bellhorn and pinch-runner Adam Hyzdu and giving the Red Sox a 7-5 lead.

Kim retired the Orioles in order in the bottom of the seventh. In the eighth, Baltimore’s Jorge Julio gave up a couple of singles but no runs.

After Kim got Lopez to ground out to third base for the first out in the bottom of the eighth, Francona brought in left-handed reliever Alan Embree – it was Embree’s 71st appearance of the season – to pitch to the left-handed-hitting Bigbie. Embree retired the side by striking out Bigbie and taking the throw to first on third baseman Luis Lopez’s grounder to Mientkiewicz.

Julio got three groundouts in the top of the ninth.

Catcher Geronimo Gil singled to left to lead off the Orioles ninth. Both managers employed a couple of changes. Mazzilli had Melvin Mora pinch-hit for Raines. Francona called on Curt Leskanic, Boston’s fifth pitcher of the game and 11th of the doubleheader, to take over from Embree. Mora walked and Baltimore had the potential tying run on first base and the winning run at the plate. Roberts laid down a sacrifice bunt, putting runners on second and third.

Leskanic got two strikes on Newhan, who then fouled off the next two pitches but went down swinging on the fifth pitch. Tejada – who had hit a two-run homer in the first game and was leading both leagues with 149 runs batted in – grounded out, second base to first.4

Grimsley was charged with a blown save and bore the loss, falling to 5-7 for the season. Kim got the win, going to 2-1. Kim had spent most of the year in Triple A; his other win had come back on April 29. Leskanic got the save, his fourth. Embree got his 20th hold.

The Red Sox had taken both of the day’s games by identical 7-5 scores. Ponson wasn’t too pleased with the large crowds, because they were more skewed toward Red Sox Nation. “It [ticks] me off,” he said. “Boston comes down here and kicks our [butts] and the whole stadium is cheering. It’s sad, but it’s one of those things you have to deal with. It’s amazing how Boston fans can get 30,000 tickets.”5

The Red Sox had awaited the results of the Oakland A’s-Anaheim Angels game in Oakland to learn whether they would be facing the Athletics, Angels, or the Minnesota Twins in the American League Division Series. Not long after their second game in Baltimore began, Anaheim’s 5-4 win went final, eliminating the A’s and narrowing Boston’s potential opponents to the Angels and Twins.

The next day, the Orioles won the season finale, 3-2. The Red Sox went on to considerable postseason success, starting in Anaheim.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Carl Riechers 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 Mal Allen for assistance with Baltimore newspapers.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL200410022.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B10022BAL2004.htm

Notes

1 Arroyo started Game Three of the ALDS and threw six innings, allowing just two runs.

2 Orlando Cabrera, from Colombia, was not related to Dominican native Daniel Cabrera, who had pitched the first game for Baltimore.

3 He quipped afterward: “That was my goal coming into spring training: leading the league in hit batsmen.” Gordon Edes, “Stylish Finish for Arroyo,” Boston Globe, October 3, 2004: C12. Travis Hafner also had 17 HBP on this date.

4 Tejada drove in a run the next day, October 3, closing the season with 150 RBIs, 11 more than the second-place David Ortiz and 20 more than third-ranking Manny Ramírez.

5 Jeff Zrebiec, “Red Sox Sweep Past Cabrera, O’s,” Baltimore Sun, October 3, 2004: 11D.