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“DIARY OF A WINNER”
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THE CURSE OF
THE BAMBINO, PART 9 May 6, 1986 ... The Red Sox stumbled and fumbled to a 6-2 loss to the California Angels at Fenway Park. The Sox beat up themselves as effectively as Marvin Hagler could have done the job, making three errors, leaving eight runners on base and never finding a way to solve either Angels starter Jim Slaton's frustratingly soft pitches or reliever Terry Forster's wickedly hard ones. For the majority of the game, Sox starter Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd (2-3) did the same to the Angels, with the exception of the third inning in which California scored two runs on one hit, and a deadly eighth. That homer by Gary Pettis was his first since June 1, 1985, a span of 114 games between jogs around the bases. If you are concluding such a homer would only come from a misthrown pitch, you are correct. But fittingly (in this case), it followed a string of miscues that, if avoided, would have had Boyd safely back in the dugout and Pettis standing in center field long before the errant Boyd screw ball was released in the first place. The inning began when Glenn Hoffman let a Ruppert Jones grounder pass untouched between his legs for an error, and Boyd soon followed that with a wild throw over first base. Two batters later, Pettis pounded Boyd's pitch, and it was 2-0. But Boston got one run back in the fourth when Dwight Evans singled, Wade Boggs doubled him to third and Bill Buckner drove him home with a long sacrifice fly to right. Boston tied it in the seventh when Evans doubled home Marty Barrett, a hit that sent Slaton to the sidelines and brought in Forster, David Letterman's favorite rotund reliever. Forster (3-0) bailed out Slaton after the Sox tied the game, 2-2, in the seventh, and Doug Corbett retired all but one batter he faced in the last two innings as he earned his first save. Meanwhile, Boyd merely retired in the eighth after California's Rob Wilfong drove in the winning run with a single to center that sent home Dick Schofield. Joe Sambito quieted things down for the rest of the inning, but Steve Crawford came on in the ninth packing a can of Sterno that the Angels happily ignited. Downing opened the inning with a double and scored on Bob Boone's single to make it 4-2, but when Lyons booted the ball in center field, Jones, who had been walked intentionally, also came around to score. They didn't particularly like the manner in which the Angels added a sixth run, although the way it came about seemed to dovetail with the way things were going all afternoon. Boone was on third when Wally Joyner grounded the ball to Hoffman. Hoffman fielded the ball cleanly but tried to force Wilfong at second instead of throwing Joyner out at first to end the inning, and the result was predictable. Hoffman ended up doing neither, and Boone came in to score while Joyner seethed at official scorer Charlie Scoggins' decision to give him an RBI but no hit on a ground ball to shortstop. That, however, was the least of Boyd's worries. The high-strung Can had errors, an absence of timely hitting and his own demons to worry about. Among Oil Can Boyd's 33 victories, he has only one in which Boston has scored fewer than four runs. After Wade Boggs tied him for the major league lead in doubles in the sixth inning, Brian Downing regained the lead with his 11th double to open the ninth. Jim Rice's 12-game hitting streak was snapped. |
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