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Troy O'Leary puts the
exclamation point August 22, 1996 ... Spare no superlatives. This was a baseball gem. This 2-1 game was a masterpiece. Sox fans savored a rarity of rarities in 1996: awesome pitching, exquisite defense and the classic ending to a baseball game - a homer by the home team in the ninth. The Red Sox beat the A's, 2-1, on Roger Clemens' classic pitching and Troy O'Leary's one-out homer in the ninth. It added up to their 17th triumph in 22 starts and their first visit to the .500 mark (64-64) this season, which has thrust them within 4 1/2 games of the slumping White Sox in the American League wild-card scramble. But this is a whole new world for the Sox, one in which they seemingly can do no wrong. They won all three games in this series on their last turn at bat, coming up with eighth-inning rallies in the first two. Then Clemens' scintillating pitching, which produced a 1-0 game until there were two outs and two strikes in the Oakland ninth, and O'Leary's Pesky poke that grazed the right-field foul pole meshed to make this the most memorable night of Boston baseball this season. Excitement built from the start. Some 4,500 fans bought tickets the day of the game, the Red Sox' biggest walk-up sale this season, and Clemens responded to the enthusiasm. Clemens came into the game with a shutout string of 19 1/3 innings, and as Oakland kept flailing. Oakland's Ariel Prieto was nearly as good, giving up only one run. That came in the fifth when Lee Tinsley walked with two out, took off for second on a 1-2 pitch to Darren Bragg and coasted home as Bragg's friendly Fenway fly grazed The Wall in left for a double. So the stage was set. By the eighth, Clemens' shutout string was up to 27 innings, remotely within sight of Cy Young's club-record 45 2/3 in 1904. Mark McGwire? He has been chasing Babe Ruth, but not this night, because the A's slugger came in 3 for 38 against Clemens (.079 on your trusty calculators) and had flied out softly three times before stepping up in the eighth with two out. McGwire fisted a humpbacker over Vaughn's head for his fourth career hit against Clemens, but it was no threat. Geronimo Berroa struck out. Clemens had 11 Ks, six of them called, and the 1-0 gem wound into the ninth. So? The crowd was roaring. Plantier struck out. Batista popped to second. And up to the plate stepped a pinch hitter for Bordick, none other than Matt Stairs, the ex-Red Sox reserve. First pitch. Strike. Second pitch. Strike. And now Clemens was one pitch away from a 1-0 win. Again Clemens threw a pitch he liked, a forkball that broke right in on him. But Steinbach fisted a soft liner that dropped over the head of second baseman Jeff Frye. Tie game, 1-1. Disappointment? Huge. Clemens induced Jose Herrera to hit into a fielder's choice. Troy O'Leary responded to the test. Oakland reliever Mark Acre had come in and he threw a forkball. He was just trying to fight it off. But he got it up and the ball hit the pole. A true Fenway homer, to the 301-foot mesh in right, but it was monumental to this team. |
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