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MORE OF "MORGAN'S MAGIC"
(BUT NOT ENOUGH)
Three homers
beat the Blue Jays
April
22, 1991 ... A 6-4 victory over the Toronto
Blue Jays on April 22nd was as close to the "perfect win" as any
triumph in recent Red Sox times. They beat their AL East rivals and
pulled 12 percentage points (.583 to .571) ahead of Toronto into a
first-place tie with the Detroit Tigers.
They hit three home runs from Tom Brunansky, Wade Boggs and
Ellis Burks and came back from a 4-1 deficit. Their much-maligned bullpen
pitched five scoreless innings and Jeff Reardon earned his fourth save in four
chances.
Sox
relievers, who have not allowed an earned run in 15 innings, held a skinny 5-4
advantage intact from the fifth through the seventh inning before Burks added a
little cushion with a shot over The Wall in the eighth. Reardon took that
breathing room into the ninth, when Mike Greenwell took a hit away from Manuel
Lee against The Wall. With two outs, Mookie Wilson tripled, so the catch loomed
large.
Danny
Darwin got touched for four runs on five hits while he still had his health.
But, trailing, 4-3, in the top of the fifth with a 1-1 count to Roberto Alomar,
he stopped pitching. He left the game complaining of tenderness in the back of
his right shoulder, which team physician Arthur Pappas diagnosed as tendinitis
after an examination. His status was listed as day-to-day.
That was
not the best of news. But the Red Sox avoided further damage in the fifth with
Dennis Lamp on the mound. Lamp allowed a single to Alomar, who stole second and
then attempted a baseball rarity by scoring from second on a sacrifice fly.
Carter hit a monstrous shot to the triangle in center on which Burks made a
spectacular running catch at the 420 mark. Alomar tagged up, went to third and
was waved on by aggressive third base coach Rich Hacker. The relay was
overthrown to Jody Reed, but backup cutoff man Tim Naehring threw to Tony Pena,
who tagged Alomar on the back of the head.
The Red
Sox seemed to catch momentum after that play. In the bottom of the fifth, they
took the lead when Boggs belted his second home run of the season, into the Red
Sox bullpen, with Naehring aboard off Wells.
It was the
second homer of the night for the Sox, who trailed, 4-1, when Brunansky hit a
two-run blast into the net that his sixth in his last four Fenway meetings with
Toronto. Jack Clark, who had three hits in his first three at-bats, had laced
his second single of the game and was forced at second on Burks' grounder before
Brunansky's 25th career homer at Fenway.
Darwin
retired the first six batters, but Greg Myers doubled to left-center to start
the third. After a sacrifice, Darwin hit Wilson with a pitch and tossed a wild
pitch to leave runners at second and third. Devon White got the first Blue Jay
run in with a sacrifice fly to center, which drew a weak throw to the plate by
Burks. That ended a stretch of 25 consecutive innings without an earned run for
Boston pitchers.
Joe Carter
cranked his 14th Fenway homer and 20th career vs. Boston in the fourth after
Kelly Gruber tripled high off the wall in left-center near the flagpole. Darwin
did not seem to have his good velocity, as John Olerud followed with a bloop
double down the left-field line. After Darwin struck out Rance Mulliniks, Myers
singled to right, scoring the fourth Toronto run.
Joe
Hesketh, who relieved Lamp after the righthander had walked leadoff man Olerud
in the sixth, got himself out of a bases-loaded jam, inducing a 5-4-3
inning-ending double play. Reed was responsible for the bases being full when he
booted Lee's grounder. |
