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THE SUMMER OF "MORGAN'S
MAGIC" ...
Mike Greenwell belts the Mariners
May
13, 1988 ... Wade Boggs went 4 for 4 and Mike
Greenwell hit back-to-back homers. Sam Horn, who hadn't hit a homer
here since last August or had an extra-base hit all this season,
crashed one beyond the bullpen with two on. And Oil Can Boyd won his
fourth game, 14-8, against the Mariners before a crowd of 29,582,
although he gave up six runs. In the
first 10 games in May, the Sox had been shut out three times and held to three
runs or fewer three other times. But tonight the Sox rolled up a 6-0 lead after
three innings, then batted around in the fourth to go up, 12-2.
By then,
every Boston batter had scored at least once, Boggs had three hits, and
Greenwell (2), Horn and Rick Cerone had cracked homers. For a club which had
only managed 12 home runs all year, it was a full Vesuvius.
Balls were
flying over the bullpen and into the screen all night. The Mariners hit five
homers, equaling the season high for the league. Three of them came off Boyd,
who'd also conceded three in his last outing. The other two were granted by
reliever Wes Gardner, who pitched the final three innings and picked up a save.
In came
Jerry Reed, who immediately gave up a double to Brady Anderson, singles to Ellis
Burks, Boggs and Dwight Evans and a monster of a three-run homer to Horn, who
jacked the ball into the seats beyond the Seattle bullpen. So it was 12-2 before
the clock had struck 9, and Boyd had a dream cushion, aided by some of the
silliest Seattle base-running this side of T-ball.
Jim
Presley dropped a shot onto the center-field warning track for what could have
been a double in the second. Instead, he found himself tagged out at first on
his way back, Ellis Burks-to-Marty Barrett-to-Dwight Evans.
Former
Bostonian Rey Quinones led off the third with a triple over Anderson's head in
right, and got picked off cleanly by Cerone. Earlier, Alvin Davis had
unwittingly broken up a double play by getting himself beaned in mid-slide by
shortstop Jody Reed.
Thus did
Boyd manage to run his record to 4-2, despite giving up 10 hits in six innings
and homers to Ken Phelps, Mickey Brantley and Presley. Tonight Boyd had the
leeway. Up and down the order, his mates were ripping balls where Mariners
weren't. Evans and Cerone (now hitting .455 at Fenway) each posted three hits,
with Barrett, Greenwell and Anderson adding two apiece. And Boggs, the newly
barefaced boy, had his 4 for 4 by the fifth inning. |
