September 22, 2007: Ninth-inning homers help Red Sox clinch postseason berth

With an 8-6 win against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on September 22, the Boston Red Sox became the first team in the majors to clinch a postseason berth in 2007. They’d held first place in the American League East Division since the 13th game of the season, back on April 18, but the win on this Saturday evening at Tropicana Field guaranteed them a slot in postseason play. Most of the 34,626 at the ballpark were reportedly Red Sox fans.1

The Red Sox hadn’t been playing particularly well. They had dropped two out of three to the second-place New York Yankees at Fenway Park, then gone to Toronto and been swept in three games there.

Their fortunes improved when they arrived in St. Petersburg for a three-game series. On Friday, September 21, Josh Beckett and the bullpen held the Devil Rays to one run and they beat last-place Tampa Bay, 8-1, with four of Boston’s runs scoring in the top of the ninth on a pair of home runs by David Ortiz and Mike Lowell.

The starters on September 22 were both working their first year in major-league baseball – Andy Sonnanstine (6-9, 5.68) for the Devil Rays and Daisuke Matsuzaka (14-12, 4.41) for the Red Sox. Matsuzaka, however, had eight years of Nippon Professional Baseball experience in Japan with the Seibu Lions.

Sonnanstine had started at Fenway Park on September 11, when Boston overturned an early seven-run deficit for a 16-10 win. In the rematch at Tropicana Field, the Red Sox went ahead on rookie left fielder Jacoby Ellsbury’s RBI single in the third. They scored two more in the fourth. Right fielder J.D. Drew doubled in third baseman Lowell for the first one, and catcher Jason Varitek singled in Drew for the other. The score stood 3-0, Boston.

Matsuzaka had allowed just two singles in the first three innings, but the Devil Rays responded with two runs of their own in the bottom of the fourth. Carlos Peña led off with his 41st home run of the season, hitting Matsuzaka’s second pitch out to right field. After an out, right fielder Delmon Young singled past third base. He stole second and scored on designated hitter Greg Norton’s single into center. That pulled Tampa Bay within a run, down 3-2.

In the top of the sixth, Drew followed Lowell’s one-out single with a home run to right field, one which stayed “fair by a few yards,” according to the Worcester Sunday Tribune.2 That restored Boston’s three-run lead at 5-2. Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon replaced Sonnanstine with lefty Jon Switzer.

Peña walked to lead off the bottom of the sixth. This time, he was forced at second on a grounder by center fielder B.J. Upton, but Upton stole second, his 20th steal of the season, and scored on a single by designated hitter Norton. That made it 5-3, Red Sox.

After getting the first two outs in the bottom of the seventh, Matsuzaka walked the next two batters. He had already lost three games to Tampa Bay in 2007, and Boston manager Terry Francona brought in left-hander Javier López to relieve “Dice-K.” Peña was up first. On the eighth pitch of the at-bat, the lefty-swinging Peña hit a three-run homer to deep right field, his 42nd of the season. Tampa Bay took a 6-5 lead, the first lead they had had in a game since Monday in Anaheim. It was the third time a Red Sox reliever had blown a save in Boston’s last eight games.

The Devil Rays’ Dan Wheeler threw 10 pitches in the top of the eighth, striking out Ortiz and Lowell and getting Drew to fly out to left-center.

Eric Gagné worked the bottom of the eighth for Boston and got an infield popfly, a strikeout, a walk, and then another strikeout.

After eight full, the Devil Rays still led, 6-5, but the Red Sox knew that the Detroit Tigers had lost their game against the Kansas City Royals, so if they could somehow win, they would clinch at least a wild card slot in the postseason. After the game, Mike Lowell acknowledged they were well aware of the Tigers loss. “(The scoreboard is) right in front of your face, you can’t help but look. Why not? This is a fun time to scoreboard watch.”3

Maddon tasked veteran reliever Alberto Reyes with closing out the win for Tampa Bay. Reyes had 24 saves on the season and a 4.76 ERA. He had blown three opportunities.

On the second pitch Reyes threw, Jason Varitek hit an opposite-field homer into the left-field seats, his 15th of the season. That tied the game 6-6.

First baseman Eric Hinske grounded a double down the right-field line. Center fielder Coco Crisp failed to advance him, hitting a weak popup to third base. The number nine batter, shortstop Julio Lugo, swung at the first pitch and hit a two-run homer to left field.4 Lugo wasn’t a home run hitter; this was just his eighth of the 2007 season. Reyes had allowed 11 home runs in his previous 57 games.5

Ellsbury then doubled on the first pitch he saw. Reyes eventually got out of the inning, but the pair of homers had given the Red Sox an 8-6 lead. Three of his four blown saves in 2007 were against the Red Sox; the two earlier ones had been on August 14 and September 12.

Closer Jonathan Papelbon retired the Rays in order and earned his 36th save of the season. The Red Sox were returning to the postseason for the first time since 2005.

“We are right where we want to be,” said Lugo. “It’s nice to do something and to win and make it to the playoffs. That’s what you come here for.”6

The Red Sox enjoyed a muted celebration. There was more work to do. After a brief toast behind closed clubhouse doors, Lowell said, “We want to celebrate one, two, three, four more times.”7

With the win – which went to Gagné – the Red Sox had indeed clinched a place in postseason play. They were, however, only 2½ games ahead of the Yankees, who had beaten the visiting Blue Jays, 12-11 in 10 innings. There were seven games left on the schedule. The Red Sox won four of them and finished two games ahead of New York.

Terry Francona became the first Red Sox manager to lead the team into the playoffs three times. It was, for him, a game that was “as roller coasterish as it gets.”8

The Red Sox swept the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the AL Division Series, fought hard to beat the Cleveland Indians in a seven-game AL Championship Series, and swept the Colorado Rockies in the 2007 World Series.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas J. Brown Jr. and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: Julio Lugo, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball Reference and Retrosheet. Thanks to Wes Singletary for providing Tampa Bay newspaper accounts of the game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TBA/TBA200709220.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2007/B09220TBA2007.htm

Notes

1 Nick Cafardo, “They’re preparing for a bigger party,” Boston Globe, September 23, 2007: C8.

2 Bill Ballou, “Red Sox clinch playoff berth,” Worcester Sunday Telegram, September 23, 2007: D2.

3 Eduardo A. Encina, “Red Sox act like they’ve been there after clincher,” Tampa Bay Times, September 23, 2007: 7C.

4 “I missed a couple [of] locations,” Reyes said after the game. “Teams like that, they’re looking for a mistake. They see that and they jump right away.” Marc Lancaster, “Late Homers Lift Boston,” Tampa Bay Tribune, September 23, 2007: 33, 44. For Lugo, it was just his eighth home run of the season.

5 Marc Topkin, “Rays give Red Sox a reason to celebrate,” Tampa Bay Times, September 23, 2007: 3C, 7C.

6 Lancaster, 44.

7 Gordon Edes, “Sox clinch spot with rally in 9th,” Boston Globe, September 23, 2007: C1, C8.

8 Edes.