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DUQUETTE PUSHES ALL
THE RIGHT BUTTONS ...
The Sox come
back in the ninth July 2, 1995 ... With Roger Clemens trailing Detroit, 5-0, the Red Sox were perilously close to heading to America's Heartland for a seven-game road trip feeling Tiger breath down their collective necks. Instead, the Sox did a little one-upmanship on the Tigers, answering Detroit's five-run top of the third by scoring eight in the bottom of the inning. Then, after Detroit scored five runs in the ninth off the embattled Ken Ryan and Stan Belinda to tie the game at 11-11, Boston loaded the bases on three walks and a got a single to right-center from Lee Tinsley to pull out its 10th win in its last at-bat, 12-11. Among the players who got going was Mo Vaughn, who stroked a pair of home runs, raising his totals to 21 homers and 50 RBIs. After the game, Vaughn was named to the American League All-Star team for the first time. Troy O'Leary pounded a pair of triples and knocked in three runs. Matt Stairs, filling in for Mike Greenwell in left field, stroked three hits and continued his good defense. The third inning featured 110 pitches, 42 by Clemens and 68 by the Tigers. There were 340 pitches thrown in 3 hours 26 minutes before 34,344, the largest Fenway crowd of the season. There were 108 balls used, the most in any Sox home game this year and almost 30 more than the average. The concerns were the usual: Clemens, who even Mike Macfarlane admits isn't the Clemens of old, and the short relief corps of Ryan and Belinda, who blew an 11-6 lead in the ninth. The Tigers sent nine batters up against Clemens in the third, an inning fueled by a Luis Alicea leadoff error on Danny Bautista's grounder. The Tigers didn't swing and miss until the score was 5-0, then Clemens struck out John Flaherty and Chris Gomez to end the inning. Belinda, who vultured his sixth win of the season, entered in the ninth after Kennedy yanked Ryan, who allowed a single to Bautista and walked Chad Curtis. Kennedy was upset with Ryan, who will be the subject of a personnel meeting today in Kansas City. After Belinda struck out Scott Fletcher, he thought he had Travis Fryman struck out, but plate umpire Ed Hickox called a close pitch a ball. The ensuing walk triggered four straight hits and five runs. The Sox teed off against Brian Bohanon, a former Texas lefthander, in the bottom of the third. A two-run double by Tim Naehring and a three-run triple by O'Leary were the big hits. The Sox' ninth was a gift from Joe Boever. Boever walked Naehring and after a wild pitch and an intentional walk to Reggie Jefferson, O'Leary walked after a series of conversations with third base coach Dave Oliver on whether the bunt sign was on, setting the stage for Tinsley's heroics. The Sox re-established a five-game lead over the Tigers in the American League East. The Sox should feel like the luckiest team on the face of the earth. |
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