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“DIARY OF A WINNER”
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THE CURSE OF
THE BAMBINO, PART 9 June 16, 1986 ... Are you surprised that the Red Sox wound up a 10-1 winner over the Yankees tonight? It's no fair giving Roger Clemens a seven-run lead. Boston pounded out 16 hits, including three each by Jim Rice and Tony Armas. Clemens' four-hit, four-strikeout, no-walk performance widened Boston's lead to 4 1/2 games in the AL East, and made him the majors' first 12-game winner. Also, he became only the 10th man in history, and the first Red Sox pitcher, to start a season with 12 straight victories. You knew Clemens would be tough long before the lead grew to seven runs. Ahead, 3-0, in the first, he challenged leadoff hitter Rickey Henderson with a fastball for strike 2, and then dropped a hook past him for strike 3. All Henderson could do was glare. Boston's lopsided victory is clearly not what the rowdy crowd of 45,576 expected. New York had been on a roll, winning three of four from Baltimore, while the Red Sox were struggling with a Milwaukee club that shut them down, winning two of three. In fact, the Yankees had every right to feel confident facing Boston. After losing the first five games to them in 1985, they won the last eight. This would be a chance to establish their midseason charge. But all that changed when the Sox jumped on Ron Guidry, who was knocked out after two-plus innings, his shortest stint since 1982, a period of 119 games. Three runs in the first inning closed the coffin on him. A walk to Bill Buckner, a stunning stolen base, and a run-scoring single by Rice nailed it shut. In the first, Guidry gave up a leadoff single to Marty Barrett and then walked Ed Romero, filling in for the injured Wade Boggs. Buckner hit what should have been a double play ball to second. But Willie Randolph tried for a tag play and when he missed Romero, the Sox wound up with runners on second and third. Rice bounced a single to center for a 2-0 lead. He moved to second on a base hit by Baylor, and one out later Armas came to life with the first of his three hits, an RBI single to left. Rice also enjoys the rivalry, but no more so than what has happened to him and the Red Sox thus far. Wade Boggs did not and may miss as many as five games because of his sore rib. Boggs had a cortisone shot to ease the pain in his right side, but it didn't help. Now hitting at .380, he has never missed more than three straight days in the starting lineup. In 1983, he suffered back spasms in Chicago, flew to Boston where he was put in traction, and rejoined the club in Toronto. The three hits by Jim Rice extended his hitting streak to nine games. He is batting .366 lifetime against Guidry (26 for 71) with 5 home runs and 16 RBIs. Rich Gedman had a seven-game hitting streak snapped. |
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