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THE SUMMER OF "MORGAN'S
MAGIC" ...
The Red Sox
blast the White Sox
May
5, 1988 ... The long-slumbering Red Sox bats
pounded the Chicago White Sox pitching staff into submission, 16-3,
at Fenway Park. The Red Sox, who had scored just five runs in their
last 36 innings and had been held to three runs or fewer in 12 of
their first 24 games, needed only three innings to solve those
problems as they beat Chicago starter Rick Horton and reliever Jose
Segura around the ears for 11 hits and nine runs. By nightfall, Marty
Barrett and seven of his teammates were denting all sides of the ball
to the tune of 18 hits, with everyone getting a hit but poor Jim
Rice. Chicago's
first inkling that something was amiss here should have come the moment Barrett,
who was 0 for 14 and 3 for 31, rapped a line double into the left-field corner
off Horton (3-4) to start things off in the first inning with a bang. After Jody
Reed walked and Wade Boggs grounded out, Dwight Evans singled to center, scoring
Barrett and Reed, and it was 2-0, a massive Red Sox lead by recent comparison.
While
Bruce Hurst (5-0) was sailing along on calm waters, Horton was facing bats so
hot it would have taken Red Adair to cool them off. In the second inning, Boston
again knocked Horton around, slamming four hits and scoring three times by
bouncing balls off the Green Monster often enough that Horton now knows how it
got its reputation. The final straw came when Boggs slapped a Wall double that
scored two and sent Horton reaching for the Camay sooner than he'd anticipated.
Segura
enabled the White Sox to escape that inning without further damage, but Boston
roughed him up in the third when it batted around and scored four times on four
hits, two walks and a wild pitch. It turned into one of those bad days for
Segura after Todd Benzinger (four hits, four RBIs) and Marzano singled with one
out, Brady Anderson reached on a fielder's choice, Barrett singled and the
runners advanced on third baseman Kenny Williams' throwing error. Reed then
walked and, when Segura's fourth ball spun wildly past catcher Carlton Fisk,
Anderson scored to make it 7-0.
Segura
wasn't done with his suffering. He looked in at Boggs and quickly walked him,
and Evans followed by starching a double that made it 9-0.
Perhaps a
bit winded at that point, the Red Sox contented themselves with watching Hurst
master the White Sox on one hit until the fifth when old friend Fisk ripped his
14th Fenway Park homer since signing with Chicago as a free agent in 1981, a
two-run shot that stopped going only because it ran into the screen in left.
That
reawakened the Sox bats, and they took it out on poor Segura in the sixth,
scoring four times on four hits and two walks. Segura walked Boggs leading off,
gave up a single to Evans and walked Mike Greenwell to load the bases. At that
juncture, manager Jim Fregosi suggested he might want to wash his face and take
his 19.29 earned run average with him.
The Red
Sox then dealt with John Pawlowski and had less trouble hitting him then they
would have spelling his name. Soon Benzinger doubled to drive in another run and
Anderson had a bloop a single that scored two, and the lead had grown to an
absurd 13-2.
Even after
Segura's departure, the Red Sox were not finished battering baseballs.
Apparently deciding to make up for lost time, Benzinger drove in three in the
seventh with his second homer of the season, and with the lead now 16-2, the
decision was made to relieve Hurst of further duty.
Dennis
Lamp came on to handle what remained of the White Sox hopes in the eighth. |
