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MORE OF "MORGAN'S MAGIC"
July 31, 1991 ... Jack Clark lived up to his billing and more by bashing three homers, scoring four runs and driving in six, capped by a 14th-inning blast off A's reliever Steve Chitren that gave the Sox an 11-10 win on July 31st. This was Fenway-ball, featuring comebacks upon comebacks. This also was as inspired a Red Sox win as you will witness this season. Up, 4-1. Down, 5-4. Down, 10-9. Tied, 10-10. They won it on their last at-bat as Clark's homer, his 17th, came on a 2-2 count and went over everything, ending a game that lasted 5 hours 1 minute. He wasn't the lone bash. There were 18 extra-base hits, 11 by the Red Sox, the major league high this year. Ellis Burks opened with a triple off Rick Honeycutt, and Wade Boggs (5 for 7) delivered the run that tied it with his fifth straight hit, his second straight single on the heels of three consecutive doubles. The two starters, Oakland's Dave Stewart and Boston's Dana Kiecker, proved minor figures, and certainly ineffective ones. Stewart exited the slugfest leading, 8-6, with one out in the sixth, Kiecker having surrendered seven of those runs in his five innings plus. The Sox later got an excellent effort from Jeff Reardon, who entered the game with the team behind, 10-9, and worked two scoreless innings. Greg Harris stepped out of his starting role to pitch four scoreless innings and eventually got the win, retiring 12 of the 13 batters he faced. Clark's second grand slam of the season and the ninth of his career had wiped out Rickey Henderson's game-opening shot off Kiecker. The A's, who scored a lone run in the fourth on a Brook Jacoby RBI double, scored three in the fifth to take a 5-4 lead. Jose Canseco's double knocked in two and Terry Steinbach's single scored the go-ahead run. The Sox got it back in the bottom of the fifth when Clark singled, Greenwell doubled and Carlos Quintana tied the game with a run-scoring ground out. Kiecker allowed a leadoff sixth-inning single to Mark McGwire and then hit Mike Gallego with a pitch. The only long man Morgan could go to at that point, Daryl Irvine, got the call. The first play was a sacrifice bunt by Mike Bordick. Irvine made the safe play, going to first. But he had a chance at the lead runner and didn't pull the trigger. He walked Rickey Henderson, and Dave Henderson hit a ground-rule double to the right-field bleachers, making it 7-5. Canseco then hit a ball to short. Luis Rivera, part of a drawn-in infield, fielded it cleanly and looked to the plate, where he seemed to have Rickey dead. But it appeared someone advised Rivera to go to first. He did. And the A's had an 8-5 lead. Back-to-back doubles by Boggs and Jody Reed in the bottom of the sixth chased Stewart and launched the Sox' most exhilarating comeback of the season. With the score 8-6 and two men on in the top of the eighth inning, Tony Fossas surrendered a bloop single to center to catcher Jamie Quirk. It scored a run, and when Burks charged, he slipped and the ball went by him, creating the four-run Oakland bulge. The Sox appeared doomed when they came to bat trailing, 10-6. They then began a gallant comeback, victimizing reliever Gene Nelson. Wade Boggs (now batting .335) singled. He rode home on Jody Reed's two-run homer, and with two outs, Clark, who had hit a grand slam off Stewart for a short-lived 4-1 lead in the third, added a solo blast. Burks entered the picture again on a far more positive note. He tripled to the right-center-field gap to start the ninth off Honeycutt. After Luis Rivera failed to get him in and Tony Pena walked, Boggs slapped a single to left, tying the game. It was the 14th runner he'd knocked in from third in 17 attempts. |
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