THE "IDIOTS" REVERSE THE CURSE
2004 ALCS, GAME #3
The Yankees totally embarrass
and bury the Red Sox, 19-8
October 16, 2004 ... The Red Sox have been beaten senseless by those damn Yankees again. The Yankees stripped the Red Sox of
all dignity last night, pummeling six Boston pitchers en route to a hideous, 19-8 victory, which gives them a 3-0 lead.
The first Fenway game of this much-hyped series could not have been more disastrous for Boston. The Sox embarrassed themselves with poor base running, inept pitching, and dubious managerial decisions. By any measure, it was an ignominious defeat as the locals succumbed without much trace of
competition or honor.
Last night, Varitek stood helplessly while A-Rod kept crossing the plate. He also watched Hideki Matsui hit two homers, two doubles and a single in the rout. Oh, and the game was played on the one-year anniversary of the Game 7 defeat in New York last year in the ALCS. In three games
this series, they have led for only one inning 4-3 at the end of the second last night.
The Yankees struck 22 hits, including eight doubles, breaking all kinds of playoff records. Meanwhile, the Franconamen ran themselves out of a couple of innings, threw to the wrong base, got doubled off first base unnecessarily, dropped a popup, and sent a soft parade of pathetic pitchers to
the mound. Fenway fans were booing the hometown team by the fifth inning and mock cheers rained down on the Sox in the late innings. The majority of the 35,126 had gone home by the time Bill Mueller flied to Bernie Williams in center to end it at 12:25 this morning. The game lasted 4 hours
20 minutes, the longest nine-inning postseason contest in big league history.
Staked to the 4-3 lead, Bronson Arroyo coughed it up, yielding a prodigious homer to A-Rod to start the third. After another walk and another double, Arroyo was yanked and replaced by Ramiro Mendoza. Mendoza has been entrusted with nothing but mop-up in his Boston tenure. It showed. He gave
up an RBI single, then balked home a run. The Yankees led, 6- 4. Orlando Cabrera's bases-loaded double tied the game at 6-6 in the third inning.
The Yankees answered with five and it was 11-6 in the fourth. A couple of more doubles by the relentless A-Rod and Sheffield made it 13-6 after five. Then it got embarrassing. The Yanks poured it on with two in the fifth and four in the seventh and two more in the ninth. The final score was
19-8.
Sox legends Dominic DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr and Johnny Pesky made ceremonial first pitches. The teammates delivered letter-high strikes. DiMaggio, Doerr, and Pesky should have stayed on the mound for the Red Sox. The 80-something men certainly would have been as effective as the six pitchers
who went to the hill. |
.jpg)
