September 23, 2003
...
You take your inspiration wherever you can find it. One strike away
from defeat, those screws were in Little's grasp when Todd Walker
delivered a thunderclap, a three-run home run into the visitors'
bullpen to tie the score with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.
And they were still there an inning later when Ortiz single-handedly
lifted his teammates out of the dugout and turned them into a
swirling, jumping, singing mass of joyous humanity with a walk-off
home run into the Monster seats.
The Sox,
whose magic number is down to 2 after Seattle lost in 11 innings last night to
Anaheim, can clinch the wild card with a victory tonight over the Orioles at
Fenway and another Mariners defeat in Anaheim this afternoon.
The list,
which now numbers eight walkoff wins (two by home run) and 23-last-bat. In
September, which began with that epic six-run ninth inning in Philadelphia,
continued two nights later in Chicago with Ortiz's consecutive home runs when he
batted in the eighth and 10th, and reached Category 5 level last night in the
Fens, when the force of Walker's tying blow off Jorge Julio and Ortiz's winner
off Kurt Ainsworth threatened to lift the ancient greensward off its 91-year-old
canvas.
Wave after
wave of cheers echoed down from the grandstand and crested on the steps of the
first-base dugout, where Henry had pushed Ortiz out to listen to chants of "Or-teez,
Or-teez" from the sellout crowd of 33,723. Of course, Henry said, he was tempted
to join the tilt-a-whirl of Sox players that pounded Ortiz as he crossed home
plate.
This was a
game the Sox seemed destined to lose. After Tim Wakefield gave up a three-run
home run to Luis Matos in the second inning, the Sox could manage just three
hits through seven innings against two young Baltimore lefties, rookie Eric
Dubose and David Parrish. In the eighth, Julio whiffed Kevin Millar and had Bill
Mueller cradling his head in his hands after his deep liner to center was run
down by Matos, stranding pinch runner Adrian Brown at third after he'd stolen
his way around the bases.
The cause
seemed even more hopeless when the Orioles scored twice in the top of the ninth
off Bronson Arroyo, aided by Gabe Kapler's error. But then Jason Varitek
pinch-hit a single, and Nomar Garciaparra drew a two-out walk. Walker then
golfed a low 3-and-2 fastball from Julio that he thought was ticketed for the
glove of right fielder Jay Gibbons but it kept carrying and carrying until it
cleared Gibbons' head and landed in the visitors' pen. No protests from Walker
that he wasn't trying to hit a home run in that situation.
Just call it
another turn of the screw, and see you next week in Oakland.
