This afternoon was
baseball in its most eccentric form. Matt Young no-hit the
Indians over eight innings in which he walked seven and allowed six
steals, but lost the first game of a doubleheader, 2-1.
But the Red Sox came back to win the nightcap, 3-0, behind the two-hit pitching
of Roger Clemens, capping off an improbable start to the 1992 season.
The combined two-hit doubleheader is a major league record.
The previous mark for hits allowed in a twin bill was three, shared by four
teams, the most recent being Cleveland against California in 1969.
Young lost his no-hitter because of a ruling made by
commissioner Fay Vincent following the 1991 season, when he decided that
no-hitters were not official if a pitcher throws only eight innings in a
complete-game loss on the road.
In past years, funny things have happened to the Red Sox in
Cleveland. Such as the infamous fog game, when Oil Can Boyd said, "This is what
they get for building a ballpark on the ocean." Or the 24-5 rout of the Indians
in 1986 when recently acquired Spike Owen tied Johnny Pesky's team record for
runs scored with six.
But the last five games haven't just been about Cleveland.
They've been about the Sox, and their new manager, Butch Hobson, creating almost
a theater of the absurd starting with two losses to the Yankees that pressed the
rookie skipper into tough decisions incredibly soon in his tenure.
Clemens dislocated his finger while exercising with elastic
tubing a half-hour before Opening Day, then returned to Worcester to have it
looked at. He called the Boston clubhouse during the 17th inning of a 7-5,
19-inning win over the Tribe Saturday to inform the team he was taking a morning
flight to Cleveland and pitching the second game.
Clemens made good on his promise to show up, and threw
zeroes at the Indians. He actually pitched far better than Young. It was typical
Clemensesque domination, fueled by Herm Winningham's first American League RBI
on a ground out in the fourth inning and Tony Pena's RBI single and Scott
Cooper's sacrifice fly off starter Scott Scudder in the seventh.
Clemens struck out 12, walked three and didn't allow a hit
after the third inning. He retired 14 consecutive batters before Alex Cole
walked in the ninth.
Bizarre? Intriguing? Unbelievable? Young's outing was all
of that. Later Young would say that a no-hitter is a no-hitter, no matter who
has changed the rules.
Four of the six stolen bases in this were by world-class
sprinter Kenny Lofton, whom Young put on three times with walks. Lofton stole
second and third after he walked in the first and the fifth. He scored in the
first when, with one out, Luis Rivera made a throwing error on Carlos Baerga's
routine grounder. Phil Plantier made a nice over-the-shoulder catch heading
toward right-center to prevent more damage.
Young, who threw 120 pitches (63 strikes and 57 balls), had
three 1-2-3 innings, and a lot of chaos in between. In the third, he walked No.
9 hitter Mark Lewis and Lofton. A couple of fielder's choices and a steal by
Glenallen Hill produced a run.
The man who did not throw to first base once last year
threw there at will, three consecutive times on Lofton at one point. He even
picked off Mark Whiten (it'll go in the books as a caught stealing), but none of
it stopped the Indian runners.
He didn't get much support from his offense. John Flaherty,
who made his major league debut and caught a "no-hitter," doubled down the
left-field line in the second for his first big league hit. Wade Boggs moved him
over with a groundout to the right side. But Charles Nagy, from the University
of Connecticut, struck out Jody Reed and Mike Greenwell looking.
The Sox scored once in the fourth when they got two infield
hits and a walk. Luis Rivera got credit for the RBI when his routine pop up
behind second landed behind Baerga's raised glove.
Boston threatened in the ninth when Tom Brunansky, hitting
for Flaherty, walked off reliever Derek Lilliquist and went to second on Boggs'
single, putting runners at first and second, nobody out. Reed flied deep to
left, and as Albert Belle made the off-balance catch, for some reason Brunansky
played it halfway rather than tag and stroll into third.
Greenwell, 1 for 11 in his last two games (he sat out the
nightcap), added insult to injury when he grounded into a 4-3 double play to end
the game.
Nagy struck out 10, allowed eight hits and one run. He'll
now be remembered as the man who beat Matt Young, who pitched a no-hitter and
lost.
