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THE SUMMER OF "MORGAN'S
MAGIC" ...
The Sox win their 5th straight
by trimming the Twins
July
18, 1988 ... The Red Sox rolled up their fifth
consecutive win with a 6-5 trimming of the world champion Minnesota
Twins tonight before a crowd of 33,397 at Fenway Park. The
game-winning RBI came from the bat of Larry Parrish. Marty Barrett
hit a home run only a couple of pitches after Jody Reed dusted
himself off from a Bert Blyleven brush-back pitch and lined a single
to left. And Lee Smith ambled in from the bullpen, for the fourth
consecutive day, and ambled off the field with his 13th save.
Five games into the reign of manager Joe Morgan, the After-Mac Sox once again
rallied back to victory. It was their 10th straight win at Fenway and brought
their record to 48-42, putting them six games over .500 for the first time since
May 14th.
In the
end, they had to sweat a bit. Smith, who has picked up two saves and a win in
the last four days, gave up the Twins' fifth run in the ninth. He didn't get the
last out, a Greg Gagne fly to center, until the Twins had the tying and go-ahead
runs at second and third.
It wasn't
a midsummer night's dream, but it lacked nothing in excitement. The Sox rallied
from deficits of 1-0 and 2-1, broke a 3-3 tie on Parrish's sacrifice fly in the
sixth and finally put it away as Smith twisted the Twins with his fireballing
right arm.
Gary
Gaetti turned out to be the focal point of the ninth, which began with the Sox
holding a 6-4 lead. After yielding back-to-back singles to Kirby Puckett and
Kent Hrbek to start the inning, Smith reached back and fanned the Twins' No. 5
hitter for the first out. Tim Laudner then popped a two-out double to right that
made it 6-5 and put runners on second and third. Morgan, who earlier had given
rookie Steve Curry the quick hook in favor of Dennis Lamp (4-3), stayed with his
terminator.
The laws
of logic haven't held fast for several days around the old ballyard. There
wasn't much logic in Mike Greenwell's third-inning catch off Kent Hrbek, when a
fly ball bounced out of the left fielder's glove, he bounced off the scoreboard,
then he caught it.
Nor was it
typically Red Sox baseball when Rich Gedman barreled through Rac Slider's stop
sign at third in the sixth inning for a 5-3 lead. He should have been out by 20
feet rather than safe by 10. The Sox won with Parrish making his debut at first
base at the age of 34. And they won in part because the sure-handed Kirby
Puckett dropped a two-out fly ball to center by Barrett that put the Sox ahead,
6-5.
The Twins
were also hurt in the eighth when, with John Moses on first, Greenwell made a
fine catch of Randy Bush's fly to left, then fired to shortstop Reed, who
relayed to first baseman Todd Benzinger for a pretty 7-6-3 double play. All the
things that used to go wrong are suddenly going right. |
