2003 was Theo Epstein’s first year as general manager, and he really hit a home run with the pieces he put together. He picked up a new third baseman in Bill Mueller, who won the batting crown in his first year for the Red Sox. He secured a new second baseman in Todd Walker. He picked up pitcher Bronson Arroyo off waivers from the Pirates, and signed veteran reliever Mike Timlin to the team. He ruffled a few feathers in the process but kept Kevin Millar from going to the Chunichi Dragons Japan, and brought him to Fenway instead. And on December 16, 2002, he noticed something that no other team’s baseball operations people seemed to: a relatively obscure hitter named David Ortiz was released outright by the Minnesota Twins. Epstein was looking for someone to back up Jeremy Giambi at first base and DH at times. The investment was only $1.25 million, but he’d acquired a more powerful bat than he probably expected – someone whose home run totals climbed and climbed every year from 2000 through 2006, setting a Red Sox team record in 2006. And Theo did all this before Opening Day of 2003.
The Red Sox planned to use a “closer by committee” rather than one gunslinger of a closer, but that plan sputtered early after a few disappointing outings. The Sox were nonetheless 6-4 before the home opener, when Pedro Martinez gave up an embarrassing 10 runs to the Orioles and lost, 13-6. Pedro rebounded quickly however, by pitching seven shutout innings on April 17th against Tampa Bay in his next start.
Fans watching from the brand-new, and highly coveted, Green Monster Seats atop the left-field wall were pleased to see the Sox win the next seven games, their longest winning streak of the season. The team was winning games and coming from behind to do it.
On April
15th, On April 20th, down 5-0 in the sixth inning, the Sox rallied to tie up the game in the seventh inning. Nomar Garciaparra completed the comeback with a ninth inning walk-off home run to give the Sox an emotional 6-5 win.
Then on May 1st,
The crowds began to come out to a sold-out Fenway Park. After pitching a complete game 9-1 masterpiece over the Minnesota Twins on May 3rd, Pedro then held the Rangers scoreless on May 15th through six innings while his teammates pulverized Texas, 12-3. From that date forward through the end of the 2010 season, Fenway Park has been packed out, by far the longest streak of sold-out games in baseball history. Given how the season played out, and 2004 as well, it’s remarkable to note that as of June 9th, although they were holding onto first place, only one team in the majors had a worse earned run average, and the Boston Globe wrote that the Sox were “on pace to post the worst ERA in franchise history” with a 5.26 mark. But on that day, they hired Dave Wallace as their full-time pitching coach and that started to turn things around. The offense was making the difference. On May 23rd and May 24th the Red Sox batters scored five or more runs in the first inning of consecutive games, for the first time since 1950. The offense didn’t need any turnaround.
Manny Ramirez gave the Sox their 10th last-at-bat victory with a 3-2 win over Houston on June 15th. It was all Nomar on June 21st in Philadelphia, as he tied a club record by going 6-for-6. But he wasn't done, because on June 24th, he went 5-for-5. On June 27th, the Sox scored 10 runs before they even made their first out, and scored a total of 14 runs in the bottom of the first inning against the team that would go on to win the 2003 World Series, the Florida Marlins. Boston saw every one of its first 10 batters reach base, and before the inning was done, Johnny Damon had already tied a major-league mark held by Boston’s Gene Stephens since 1953: he had three hits in one inning and was primed for a cycle he didn’t attain. Damon singled, doubled, and tripled all in the one frame. On June 29th the team banged out six home runs against the same Marlins. It was newcomer Gabe Kapler, who led the way, with five hits in his first six plate appearances.
Then on the July 4th, Boston hit seven home runs against the Yankees in New York and won, 10-3. Then the next day David Ortiz hit two off New York’s Roger Clemens, and Boston won again, 10-2. After the All Star break the Sox continued their offensive fireworks. Led by Manny Ramirez, they pounded Detroit 14-5 on July 21st. Trot Nixon launched two home runs, including a game-breaking grand slam in a seven-run seventh inning, to help lift the Sox to a come-from-behind 10-4 victory over the Devil Rays on July 23rd. The Sox met the Yankees at the end of July, and after losing the first meeting, Jeremy Giambi singled, stole second, and scored the winning run on David Ortiz's wall-ball single, for the team's sixth walk-off and sixteenth last at-bat decision, on July 26th. The Sox took two of the three games played against New York and closed to 1 1/2 games of the league leaders.
Kevin Millar’s three-run eighth-inning home run over the wall on August 9th was the 10,000th home run hit in the history of Fenway Park, and won the game, again coming from behind, 6-4. In mid-August the team went 4-9 and fell to 7 1/2 games behind the Yankees, and stated paying attention to the wild card standings.
So just
when they needed some fresh life,
Millar urged
his teammates to “cowboy up!” which became the phrase of the season and a
homemade video of
Millar
lip-synching and gyrating to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” was
played on the Diamond Vision scoreboard in center field.
After much needed wins by Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez and John Burkett, the Sox maintained their wild card lead (and only four games behind the Yankees) with three late home runs off Roy Halladay, on August 27th.
In the beginning of September, the Sox went on the road and won five in a row, including 2 of 3 at Yankee Stadium. The highlight was an 11-0 drubbing of the Yankees on a four hit shutout from Tim Wakefield on September 6th, to put them within 1 1/2 games of the league leaders and give them a 1 1/2 game lead in the wild card race. But the Sox faltered and the pitching failed. By the middle of the month, the Yankees held a 5 1/2 game lead. Only Derek Lowe (17-7) and Pedro Martinez (14-4) were reliable starters down the stretch. Lowe won six of his last seven starts and Pedro finished strong, winning his last five games and eight of his last ten. And the bats still boomed. With the post season playoffs in sight, the Sox came from behind again for the 23rd time against Baltimore. On September 23rd Todd Walker tied up the game in the 9th inning with a three run homer and David Ortiz gave the Sox their eighth walk-off win in the tenth inning with a monster game-finishing blast. When the team clinched the wild card at home on September 25th, they went a little wild. Millar and Derek Lowe even ran the block to Boylston Street in their cleats and uniforms and started tending bar at the Baseball Tavern. The team banged out a club-record 238 home runs by year’s end, with 37 of them off the bat of Manny Ramirez (who drove in 104) and 31 off Ortiz’s bat (he drove in 101). Nomar Garciaparra’s 105 RBIs (helped by 28 homers) led the team. And Kevin Millar hit 25 HRs, knocking in 96. Six Sox hit 20 or more home runs.
Bill Mueller’s .326 won the American League batting title. The Red Sox set the major-league mark for extra-base hits in a season, for total bases in a season, and had the highest slugging percentage of any team ever .491 even including the 1927 “Murderer’s Row” New York Yankees. Eight Red Sox players had 80 or more RBIs, tying a major league mark; another mark was tied when nine players had 100 or more hits.
Continuing the theme of their season, the Red Sox took the ALDS against the Oakland Athletics, by losing the first two games and then coming from behind to win the next three. Game #1 was lost on an extra innings suicide squeeze, after the Sox bullpen failed to hold the lead in the bottom of the ninth inning. Barry Zito then dominated the Sox batters, to cruise to an easy win in Game #2. Trot Nixon's classic walk-off 11th inning home run kept the Sox alive in Game #3 back in Fenway Park. The next day a dramatic hit, this time a two run double by David Ortiz in the bottom of the 8th inning, to put the Sox in the lead 5-4, put Game #4 in the win column, to tie the series. And finally, the Sox had to hang on at the end, as Derek Lowe came in during the ninth inning to save game and the series, with runners in scoring position, in Game #5. The Sox came back, as they did all season, and fought back to take the series with three edge-of-your-seat victories.
The Red Sox were all but at war with the Yankees in the ALCS. The two teams quietly split the first two games in New York. Game #1 went to the Sox on the great pitching of Tim Wakefield and the Sox bullpen, and Game #2 to the Yanks on the arm of Andy Pettite. The flashpoint would be Game #3 and a dream duel, pitting Boston ace Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens, who earlier announced that 2003 would be his final year. One of baseball’s longest-running cold wars boiled over when Martinez plunked the Yankees’ Karim Garcia in the back, and when Manny Ramirez overreacted to a high (but not tight) Clemens fastball a half-inning later. The dugouts emptied into an episode low-lighted when Yankee bench coach Don Zimmer charged Martinez, who grabbed the 72-year old by his bald head and shoved him to the ground. From all of this, no one was ejected, and Clemens and the Yankees prevailed, 4-3. The Red Sox recovered by winning two of the next three games. Game #4 saw Tim Wakefield, one again, step up and stop the Yankees. David Wells kept the Sox batters in during Game #5, shoving the Red Sox, once again into a do-or-die situation, going back to Yankee Stadium. But the Sox fought back, tooth and nail, to come from behind and take Game #6, forcing a final game showdown.
It was a Martinez and Clemens reprise, at Yankee Stadium. Clemens was ineffective and gone after three innings, while Martinez sailed on, leading 5-2 after seven. But in the eighth the Yanks got a run back, and Grady Little was ready to go to his bullpen. Months earlier, such a decision would have been fraught with danger, but the once beleaguered Red Sox relievers had become nothing short of spectacular in the postseason, allowing a sensational 1.14 ERA over 31.2 innings of work. When Little approached the mound, Martinez lobbied to stay in. He had thrown 115 pitches. The Red Sox bullpen was ready but Little stuck with Martinez. The next batter, Hideki Matsui doubled his way on as the
tying runner. He reached home one batter later when Jorge Posada hit a
Texas Leaguer into short center field. Bang-bang, tie game. Then Little
went to the bullpen. Neither team could unknot the 5-5 score through ten
and a half innings, but then New York third baseman Aaron Boone lofted
Tim Wakefield’s first
pitch of the Yankee 11th high, deep and into the left field bleachers.
Boom, game over. The Red Sox were cursed again.
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