October 21, 2007: Red Sox win Game 7 of ALCS, rally from 3-1 comeback vs. Cleveland

The Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox had some postseason (or late season) history. In 1948 they were tied on the last day of the season and had a one-game playoff to determine who won the American League pennant. The visiting Indians beat the Red Sox, 8-3 – and then stayed in Boston, where two days later they played the first game of the World Series against the Boston Braves.1

The Indians – now the Guardians – had four postseason series in the 1990s. In 1995 and 1998, Cleveland advanced to the AL Championship Series by winning AL Division Series against the Red Sox. Boston returned the favor in 1999, erasing a two-games-to-none ALDS deficit by racking up 44 runs in three straight wins over the Indians.

The Red Sox finally overcame 86 years of frustration, winning the World Series in 2004, but after being down in the 2007 ALCS three games to one, it looked as though the Indians might knock out the Red Sox for the fourth time in a 59-year stretch.

But Josh Beckett’s 7-1 win in Game Five at Cleveland’s Jacobs Field brought the series back to Boston. Another lopsided Red Sox win in Game Six evened the series at three wins apiece. The Red Sox became the first team ever to have three consecutive LCS appearances go to a Game Seven, following their dramatic 2003 and 2004 series with the New York Yankees.

The Sunday evening game at Fenway Park would determine which team would face the Colorado Rockies in the 2007 World Series.2 The starting pitchers were Daisuke Matsuzaka for the Red Sox and Jake Westbrook for the Indians. They had faced each other in Game Three, and it had been the lowest-scoring of the first six games – a 4-2 win for Westbrook. Matsuzaka had left after 4⅔ innings, having given up all four runs.

The Red Sox were first to score in Game Seven. Dustin Pedroia led off the bottom of the first with a single lined to left. Kevin Youkilis – batting .478 in the ALCS – grounded a single to left. Another opportunity was presented to postseason superstar David Ortiz, but this time he struck out.

Manny Ramirez – himself hitting .421 in the Series – singled, on a “tailor-made double play ball” that hit the edge of the grass and hopped over shortstop Jhonny Peralta.3 Pedroia scored and the Red Sox had a run. Mike Lowell lined a single to left, loading the bases for Game Six hero J.D. Drew, whose first-inning grand slam had ignited a 12-2 Red Sox win. This time, Drew swung at the first pitch, hitting into a nicely executed 6-4-3 double play.

Boston got another run in the second. Jason Varitek doubled high off the wall in straightaway left. Jacoby Ellsbury bounced one past shortstop and into left, and Varitek stopped at third. Julio Lugo hit into another 6-4-3 double play, and Varitek came home for a 2-0 lead.

Matsuzaka set down the Indians in order in the first two innings and retired the first two batters in the third before allowing a harmless single to third baseman Casey Blake. In the bottom of the third, the Red Sox scored once again. Youkilis led off with a double, bouncing it into the left-field corner. As the Boston Globe asserted, Youkilis had “only gotten hotter as Boston’s famed 3-4 hitters, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, began to sputter.”4

Westbrook again was faced with a runner in scoring position and nobody out. Ortiz grounded out to first, Youkilis taking third. Ramirez was walked intentionally. Lowell brought home the third Red Sox run in three innings with a sacrifice fly to right.

The Indians got one themselves in the top of the fourth. The rally started with a one-out double high off the left-field wall by designated hitter Travis Hafner (breaking a personal 0-for-16 stretch). Hafner held at second on Victor Martinez’s comebacker to Matsuzaka, then scored easily when Ryan Garko doubled high off the wall in left-center. The Red Sox got a couple of singles in the bottom of the inning but no runs; Westbrook induced Pedroia to hit into his team’s third double play in four innings.

The Indians crept closer in the fifth. They started with three consecutive singles – by Kenny Lofton, Franklin Gutierrez, and Blake – but Manny Ramirez threw out Lofton trying to go for two bases on the first of the three.5 Grady Sizemore, who had been 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position, hit a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Gutierrez. It took nine pitches, but Matsuzaka struck out Asdrubal Cabrera for the third out. Westbrook set the Red Sox down in order in the bottom of the inning.

Hideki Okajima came in to relieve Matsuzaka in the sixth. He got a couple of fly-ball outs and a groundout. Westbrook, seemingly having settled down, struck out two Red Sox as he had in the fifth, retiring the side in order. Westbrook had pitched well. The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Terry Pluto noted that he was the only Indians pitcher to allow as few as three runs in six innings, which he had done in Games Three and Seven. Walks had really hurt the other starters.6

Okajima was back on the mound in the top of the seventh, with Boston’s lead still just 3-2. Shortstop Lugo dropped Lofton’s one-out popup to short, and the Indians had a runner in scoring position.

They might have tied the game when Gutierrez singled to left, but the speedy Lofton, in the final game of his 17-season big-league career, was held by third-base coach Joel Skinner. Both TV broadcasters and a couple of Cleveland columnists thought Lofton might have scored without even drawing a throw to the plate.7 Instead, Blake hit into a 5-4-3 double play, and the Indians remained a run behind.

Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer declared the decision to hold Lofton at third “a mistake that will live in Indians postseason history, adding, “All the momentum the Indians had been gathering was pointed to that moment. When it produced nothing, the Indians disappeared into the October night not to be seen again until mid-February.”8

Right-hander Rafael Betancourt relieved Westbrook for the seventh. He had pitched in Games Two, Three, Four, and Five and given up only one hit in 6⅓ innings. The Red Sox were going for an insurance run after Ellsbury reached second on third baseman Blake’s error. Lugo sacrificed Ellsbury to third. Pedroia was up – still without an RBI in the ALCS, but with a perfect opportunity to knock one in, even while making an out. He knocked in two runs instead, with a home run into the Monster seats in left-center.9 Boston had some breathing room with a 5-2 lead.

Okajima – continuing his relief stint after two 11-pitch innings – opened the eighth by yielding back-to-back singles by Sizemore and Cabrera. Cleveland had the tying run at the plate in Hafner, a steady power threat with 127 home runs over the past four seasons.

Manager Terry Francona called on Jonathan Papelbon to take over. Hafner struck out on three pitches; as Terry Pluto pointed out, “Hafner had one hit in his last 18 at bats, striking out 11 times.”10 Martinez hit into a force play at second. Garko flied out to center, caught near the Red Sox bullpen.

It turned out to be the Indians’ last chance, as the Red Sox took command in the bottom of the eighth. Lowell doubled to the gap in left-center with one out. Drew singled up the middle, making it 6-2, Red Sox.

Varitek hit a ground-rule double – a popup down the left-field line that should have been caught by Peralta, but he collided with Blake, and the ball bounced off the dirt and into the seats, putting runners on second and third. Ellsbury was walked intentionally, loading the bases. Lugo struck out. First-pitch swinging, Pedroia hit a bases-clearing double that bounced to the wall in left-center. With three more runs batted in (a total of five RBIs in the game for Pedroia), it was 9-2, Red Sox. Betancourt was pulled, and Jensen Lewis brought in to pitch to Youkilis.

As if things weren’t bad enough for the Indians, Youkilis homered off the giant Coke bottles atop the left-field wall. It was 11-2.

Papelbon did allow a leadoff single in the ninth but then got the next three batters – the final catch made by center fielder Coco Crisp, running hard and banging into the center-field side wall of the Red Sox bullpen. It was the first six-out save of Papelbon’s career.

Facing elimination, the comeback was complete.

Beckett was named the ALCS MVP (2-0 with a 1.93 ERA), striking out 18 and walking one.11 Youkilis had finished batting an even .500, with 7 RBIs. Ramirez had 10 RBIs. Pedroia had 5, all in Game Seven.

The Red Sox had put up scores of 7-1, 12-2, and 11-2 – a total of 30 runs to 5. The Boston Globe asserted that the three-game surge had sent the Red Sox into the World Series “with as much momentum as the [Rockies] team that’s won 10 in a row.”12

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and a video of the game on YouTube.com. Thanks to Joe Wancho for supplying clippings from Cleveland newspapers. The author admits to having snuck a swig of champagne in the Red Sox clubhouse after the team had won the pennant.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200710210.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2007/B10210BOS2007.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XD47disxXU

Notes

1 Cleveland won the World Series in 1948 for the first time since 1920. As of the end of the 2023 season, it remained the franchise’s most recent World Series championship.

2 That itself was a daunting prospect. The Rockies had never been to the World Series before, but they put on an incredible finish in 2007, winning 13 of their final 14 games, forcing a one-game playoff with the San Diego Padres, which they also won – in a 13th inning walk-off. They then swept the NLDS from the Philadelphia Phillies and swept the NLCS from the Arizona Diamondbacks. All told, they had won 20 of the last 21 games. If ever a team was seen as a juggernaut, it might have been the 2007 Rockies.

3 The words were those of Fox broadcaster Joe Buck. See the video of the game on YouTube.

4 Kevin Paul Dupont, “Youkilis on the Upswing,” Boston Globe, October 22, 2007: G4. Dupont clarified that “sputter, of course, is a relative term,” noting that Ramirez had hit .400 in the ALCS and Ortiz .292.

5 Ramirez played the wall well, barehanding the ball after it bounced off the dirt and throwing to second. Video shows that Lofton was clearly safe, but there was no argument regarding the call.

6 Westbrook walked four (one intentionally) in his 13 innings. “Compare that to C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona, who combined to walk 16 in 16⅓ innings. If you look at Boston, Josh Beckett had only one walk in 14 innings of his two victories. Curt Schilling didn’t walk anyone in 11⅔ innings against the Tribe. And Daisuke Matsuzaka didn’t walk anyone in Game 7 in five innings. So [in] Boston’s four victories, its starting pitchers walked only one in 26 innings!” Terry Pluto, “Quality Starts Defined by Walks,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 22, 2007: C5.

7 Bud Shaw subbed it a “double clutch” when Skinner first waved Lofton around third, but then held him up. Bud Shaw, “For Tribe and Fans, a Winter of Regret,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 22, 2007: C1. See also Joe Maxse, who enumerated several baserunning shortcomings. “Base-Running Plays Put Stop on Indians,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 22, 2007: C4.

8 Paul Hoynes saw no ambiguity: “Lofton was already at third, and the ball was still rolling in the outfield. The game should have been tied, but third base coach Joel Skinner stopped Lofton.” Paul Hoynes, “Three … Fold Indians Complete ALCS Collapse Monster Letdown in Boston,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 22, 2007: C1.

9 The runs were the first Betancourt had allowed in the postseason. After the game, Pedroia said, “Once it went out, man, I was so excited and had so much adrenaline going on, I don’t even remember running around the bases, to tell you the truth. … It was the biggest at-bat of my life, and I’ll never forget it.” Amalie Benjamin, “Swagger after His Daggers,” Boston Globe, October 22, 2007: G2.

10 Terry Pluto.

11 Beckett had been the World Series MVP for the Florida Marlins in 2003.

12 Gordon Edes, “Red Sox Roar into World Series,” Boston Globe, October 22, 2007: A1, G6.