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The Philadelphia story: Coming to terms with the Red Sox’ debacle at the Vet
BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

While the Boston Red Sox have had many horrible losses in their history, one could argue that Saturday’s 6-5 13-inning setback in Philadelphia was possibly the most painful ever. Oh sure, there have been excruciating beatings before — at least four different ones earlier this season could fit the bill — and the game-six meltdown in the 1986 World Series is the defeat that modern-day Sox fans mark as the mother of them all, but the agonizing turns of Saturday’s crash-and-burn at Veterans Stadium took the term "painful loss" to a whole new level.

My heart goes out to anyone who got nothing done on Saturday afternoon except to watch the four-hour-and-45-minute marathon broadcast by FOX-TV as its regional game of the week. There is little doubt that by dinnertime, those who put their faith in the local nine found themselves emotionally exhausted and likely overwhelmed by bitterness and anger. And the weekend was shot for the team itself, as it followed up the Saturday disaster with a no-show 5-0 loss in the finale of the two-game rain-shortened series.

For Red Sox Nation on Saturday, it was torture, pure and simple, dragging on for nearly five hours, with the ultimate ending seemingly clear when the Phillies tied the game at 2-2 in the eighth inning. And despite that looming sense of foreboding, the Red Sox still went on alternately to tease and disappoint, lifting Boston fans to hopeful highs and deflating lows over the course of the final innings of play. And that is what made the defeat so heartbreaking: with all the things that had gone wrong before that fateful home 13th inning, there was still a chance that some dignity and pride could be salvaged by Boston. Instead, however, the team inserted the dagger — just as Bob Stanley, Calvin Schiraldi, et al. did in 1986 — just when it seemed that a glorious victory was at hand.

It is fashionable and somewhat appropriate to pin the blame for Saturday’s loss on the Sox bullpen, because after Pedro Martinez left the game after seven full, three of the five relievers blew separate save opportunities. Mike Timlin entered the game in the eighth, and while Pedro had gone seven full innings and given up just one lone run (on four hits), it took Timlin just three batters to allow the tying run to score (on a Jim Thome HR). Why the righty Timlin was facing the lefty Thome — who was 3-for-6 lifetime against Timlin — instead of left-handed Alan Embree (who had whiffed Thome in five of his 0-for-6 lifetime at-bats) is a question better asked of Sox manager Grady Little. Embree, who entered the game in the bottom of the ninth, put out fires along with Brandon Lyon in the following two innings; they were the only two reasonably effective committee members on this day. With a 3-2 lead and the chance to nail down the win in the 12th, reliever Jason Shiell got the first two outs of the inning and a 1-2 count on Thome, only to throw two consecutive balls and then a gopher that the former Cleveland Indian deposited in the left-centerfield bleachers. Tie game — again.

But wait — Boston bounced back from this unsettling state of affairs to score two more in the top of the next inning, and led 5-3 heading into the bottom of the dreaded 13th. Shiell was back on the hill in the bottom of the inning, his chance at redemption firmly in hand. Instead, he walked the leadoff hitter and then gave up a run-scoring double to David Bell (who was hitting .208 at the time) before giving way to the fifth reliever of the day, Rudy Seanez. Sure, Rudy the Rabbit’s ERA is almost seven, but he had to get just two outs to secure the 5-4 victory. Two outs? Try two pitches, one home run, and a mind-numbing 6-5 loss. That fateful homer was hit by a 36-year-old back-up catcher who had played in just 15 games this season and hadn’t hit a home run since last September.

The bullpen’s failure played a significant role in this sad tale, but many other subplots that happened in regulation could conceivably have changed the outcome much, much earlier in the day. No, the post-Pedro pitchers were not the only bleating goats in this contest; there is a herd of others. Let’s go down the box score:

• Johnny Damon: sure, Damon’s two-out single in the 13th ignited what seemed to be the winning rally, but is there any excuse for him to go 0-for-5 prior to that in a game like this? Damon’s a great guy and a pretty solid centerfielder (though his arm is questionable), but Red Sox fans are starting to question why a guy hitting just .258 continues to bat leadoff for this team. Damon has more hitless games (20) than multi-hit games (19) in his 69 games this year, and that doesn’t cut it for a guy at the top of the order.

• Manny Ramirez: uh-oh, here comes that negative Boston media again, but nothing can justify a guy making $111,111 a game this season going 0-for-7. Nomar Garciaparra sparkled in the three spot Saturday, going a career-high 6-for-6, but he scored just once because Ramirez consistently put up the goose egg behind him. Even worse, with the sacks loaded and two out in the seventh in a 2-2 game, Ramirez — normally a patient hitter — flied out to left on the first pitch from reliever Turk Wendell. Ramirez compounded his day of indignity by grounding into a double play on a 3-1 pitch with two men on in the ninth. Ramirez bounced back from his 0-for-7 collar with an 0-for-4 day on Sunday. That’s nearly a quarter-million bucks of John Henry’s stash gone to waste over two days.

• Jason Varitek: with one out in the sixth and the bases loaded in a 2-1 game, Varitek did the worst possible thing — grounded into a double play, thereby depriving Pedro of some insurance runs. Two innings later, Tek got another chance at redemption when he came up with men on second and third and no outs. He redeemed himself by striking out, as did fellow tin-can-chompers Damian Jackson and David Ortiz, resulting in a tremendous squander that kept the score at 2-1 and set the stage for Thome’s game-tying homer in the bottom of the inning. Varitek whiffed again in the 12th with Kevin Millar at third for what could have been a key insurance run. Maaa-aaa-aaah.

• Jeremy Giambi: there has been no more colossal failure at the plate for the American League’s second-best offensive team than Jason’s younger brother. While all around him his teammates are batting .270 and better, Jeremy Giambi is flailing along at a .173 clip. He has nearly double the total of strikeouts (36) as he does hits (19), and when he came up with Millar at third in the 12th and only one out, Giambi had a chance to drive home a critical run. Instead, he struck out, and his and Varitek’s consecutive punch-outs again kept Philly within one run, rather than two, thereby giving Thome another opportunity to be the hero.

• Damian Jackson: not only did the resident speedster strike out in the eighth with men on second and third and only one out, but he went 0-4 with a pair of whiffs while contributing exactly nada to the effort on Saturday.

There were a number of heroes, including Garciaparra and his six-pack, and Todd Walker’s pair of home runs and run-scoring double that should have provided the game-winner in the 13th. Sadly for Sox fans, the pair combined to go 0-for-7 in the lackluster Sunday finale — a game where the team was shut out by a 22-year-old pitching his 27th major-league game, and who had entered the contest with a 5-6 record, having given up 14 runs in his last 14 and two-thirds innings.

Red Sox followers know that there have been some other painful losses this season, including the Opening Day fiasco where Tampa scored five runs in the bottom of the ninth for a 6-4 win; the 6-5 loss in the Bronx when the Sox scored four in the ninth off Mariano Rivera to tie the game, only to walk in the winning run in the bottom of the inning; and the bookend 9-7 and 8-7 losses to St. Louis in the three-game series at Fenway two weeks ago. Nonetheless, for sheer agony and torment, none could top the ignominy in Philly over the weekend (although Mets fans can certainly identify, given the manner in which their team bowed in extra frames to the pinstripers on Sunday night).

There is a ray of hope for fans of the Olde Towne Team, as the woeful Tigers, Marlins, and Devil Rays loom as the upcoming "opposition" in the next few weeks. Nonetheless, for Boston, which has now managed to fall into third place behind surging Toronto in the AL East, there is little hope of making up much ground, since the Yanks (Rays, Mets, Orioles) and Jays (O’s, Expos, Tigers, O’s again) also have fairly easy schedules ahead of them.

With this unsettling turn of events for fans of the crimson hose, the team’s following may be falling back on its Calvinist roots, taking comfort in the thought of predestination and the expectation that something bad will undoubtedly happen. Wise Sox fans turned off the set as soon as Thome tied the score in the eighth inning on Saturday; masochistic Sox fans stayed right with the game for the next five innings and the inevitable(?) conclusion.

These are the kinds of games that try men’s souls, and continue to drive Red Sox fans crazy.

And if you believe that insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result," but you still plan on sticking with your team no matter what the future holds this season, then staying the course probably guarantees you’ll be certifiable by September.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com


Issue Date: June 23, 2003
"Sporting Eye" archives: 2003 |2002
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