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July 30,
1997 ... Down
five runs to swaggering Seattle with six outs to go, what's a manager
to do? If you're Jimy Williams, you dump your DH, use two pinch
runners, a new center fielder, a new right fielder, a new first
baseman, a new catcher, and three more pitchers, including one as the
first Red Sox pitcher in 11 years to pinch hit. Then you sit back and
watch while:
- the
other team's bullpen blows up again;
- Alex
Rodriguez, maybe the best shortstop in baseball, makes a throwing error with two
out in the bottom of the ninth as the tying run scores;
-
Nomar Garciaparra, your shortstop and the consensus rookie of the year, drives
the game-winning hit off the Wall with the bases loaded in the 10th.
Red
Sox fans have seen it happen with regularity to the Boston bullpen this summer,
including today, when John Wasdin replaced a besieged Butch Henry and promptly
gave up a three-run home run to Edgar Martinez, making the score 7-2 in the
eighth.
But
for sheer flammability, even the Red Sox pen must defer to the Mariners' relief
crew, which has an American League-worst 6.14 ERA, 15 blown saves, and is
single-handedly keeping Seattle from winning the West in a walk.
Garciaparra, who had reached safely when fellow wunderkind Rodriguez threw away
what should have been his game-ending grounder in the ninth, lined a
game-winning single off Edwin Hurtado, Seattle's seventh pitcher and the wildest
of the bunch.
In the
10th, Hurtado compounded what seemed like a harmless two-out single by Jesus
Tavarez, who had entered as a pinch runner in the ninth, by walking Darren Bragg
and Jeff Frye.
While
Seattle manager Lou Piniella did a slow burn, Hurtado made it nine straight
balls on his first pitch to Garciaparra. Second baseman Joey Cora went to the
mound to calm the pitcher, who finally threw a strike, temporarily silencing the
shrieks of what was left from the crowd of 33,056. Moments later, Garciaparra
pumped up the volume again with his line drive off the Wall, Boston's 18th hit
of the game on an afternoon when the Red Sox left 18 men on base. |
