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75 YEARS & A FENWAY HANGOVER ...
Dave Henderson
slams
a walk-off HR in the 10th
July
18, 1987 ... After Jim Rice's ninth-inning homer
brought the Red Sox into a 3-3 tie, Dave Henderson stepped to the
plate in the 10th and cranked a two-run blast into the right-field
seats to hand the Sox a 5-3 victory over the Oakland Athletics.
Henderson, without a game-winning RBI since Game 5 of last year's playoffs,
picked on Gene Nelson's 2-and-2 pitch and deposited it neatly into the stands.
Dwight Evans, who led off with a single, trotted home in front of him, and a
blissful crowd of 34,720 went home talking of the way things used to be.
To be realistic, though, the win only cut the Sox deficit
in the AL East to 15 games. It did prevent them from dropping nine games under
.500 for the first time in 11 years. And it also improved the Sox' dismal
extra-inning record to 2-10, outscored now, 28-5, after the ninth inning in
1987.
The Sox, for much of the game, were lulled by the offerings
of Jose Rijo. By the fourth inning, Hurst had allowed seven hits and the Sox
were in a 3-1 hole. But while Hurst worked out his rhythm, which had been
plaguing him for his last two or three starts, the Sox finally got into the
Oakland bullpen and pulled within a run in the eighth when the pinch-hitting Don
Baylor cracked a sacrifice fly off Dennis Eckersley.
In the ninth, Eck was only one strike away from picking up
his second save in three games. He had Rice at 2-and-2 with two outs and reached
back in hopes of twisting a big curve by the Sox' struggling cleanup man.
Rice, before the at-bat, was mired in misery in this
series. He was caught looking with the bases loaded in the third and had left a
total of five runners stranded before the ninth. In the three games, he had left
14 runners standing still and erased another with a double-play grounder.
Finally, in the 10th, Evans led off with a single and
Henderson nailed Nelson for his seventh homer of the year.
For guts, though, Hurst's performance was none too shabby.
He threw 111 pitches through nine innings, eight more in the 10th, and was ready
for more if necessary. Tinkering with his mechanics, he let up on his forkball,
getting better results as the A's geared at the plate for his fastball. He gave
up only two hits after the fourth and finished with six strikeouts with the
first of those coming in the fifth inning.
Ninth-inning homers and Henderson blasts. All from a time
long, long ago. |
