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REVERSING THE CURSE,
PART 2
PEDRO
& TEK COME TO TOWN
Nomar and Pedro dismiss the Blue Jays
July 26, 1998 ... While
the Sox completed a homestand behind Pedro Martinez with a 6-3 win
over Toronto that also featured Nomar Garciaparra's inside-the-park
home run. The Blue Jays had the look of a team whose wheels were
coming off after dropping three out of four to Boston while trying to
defuse their own in-house crisis.
Martinez,
who is praised for his arm and his heart but doesn't receive enough credit for
his brain, was at his cerebral best while shutting out the Blue Jays on six hits
through seven innings, the third straight start in which he has not allowed a
run in Fenway Park. Pedro's eighth win in his last nine decisions, which was
witnessed by his mother, Leopoldina, improved his record to 14-3 while lowering
his league-leading ERA to 2.59. He struck out Blue Jays cleanup hitter Carlos
Delgado and past Sox designated hitter Mike Stanley three times apiece,
including back-to-back whiffs in the sixth, after the Jays opened the inning
with consecutive singles.
Blue Jays
starter Pat Hentgen, meanwhile, couldn't dismiss thoughts of how he nearly was
snubbed by his own manager in favor of Roger Clemens, the subject of
will-he-or-won't-he-pitch speculation that Toronto manager Tim Johnson was
either unwilling or unable to quash. Hentgen, himself a former Cy Young Award
winner, felt so slighted that he openly talked about wanting to be traded, even
though Clemens never strayed from the dugout.
And
Garciaparra didn't help Hentgen's frame of mind any by breaking the game open
with a three-run, inside-the-park home run in the seventh inning, the first in
more than seven years by the Red Sox. Garciaparra's inside-the-parker, which
made it two straight games in which he has delivered late-inning home runs,
expanded the Boston lead from 2-0 to 5-0. Damon Buford had homered into the
screen (No. 7) for a 1-0 lead in the second, and Troy O'Leary's double over the
head of left fielder Jose Canseco scored Garciaparra to make it 2-0 in the
sixth. Canseco, incidentally, was in right field for Oakland and fell down when
Luis Rivera circled the bases for the last Red Sox inside-the-parker, June 21,
1991. |
