E-Mail This Article to a Friend Dissecting the Marlins-Sox blowout one year later BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

When the clock struck midnight last October 25, the Florida Marlins were in the midst of a raucous celebration following their Game-Six whitewash of the New York Yankees, which climaxed the Marlins’ stunning World Series triumph.

But four months earlier, they weren’t so jubilant. Not as such. Because back on the night of June 27, on a picture-perfect summer evening at Fenway Park, the Jack McKeon–led Marlins suffered a defeat of ignominious proportions — a pasting so complete and embarrassing that it painted the Florida baseball team’s professional credentials as somewhat more than dubious.

Indeed, if you had asked a baseball fan following that night’s fiasco — a 25-8 Red Sox victory — which team would likely find itself in the Fall Classic in four months’ time, it would have been a no-brainah: humiliated on a level rarely seen beyond suburban T-ball leagues, the Marlins seemed destined for the cellar.

Instead, against all reasonable odds, the Marlins rebounded from this disgraceful performance to reach the pinnacle of the baseball world. Numerous records were set during the debacle, and those remarkable stats alone provide the gist for today’s look back at that Sox-Fish tilt. But first, let’s set the stage.

It was a magnificent evening for baseball that Friday evening, with 87-degree temps, blue skies, and ice-cold beer providing the backdrop for a sellout crowd of 34,764. The Red Sox entered the game (surprise) in second place by a couple of games behind the you-know-whos in the AL East, with a 45-32 record. The Marlins had completed the long road back to .500 the night before, as their 6-1 victory over the Mets in New York had improved Florida’s record to a very respectable 40-40. The Marlins came into Fenway having won six of seven, and were sending former Sox farmhand Carl Pavano (6-8) to the hill against the Sox’ Byung-Hyun Kim (1-5), whom the Sox had acquired in a trade with Arizona a month earlier. Despite the Marlins’ hot streak at the time, they still seemed destined for another miserable season — their sixth straight since the team won the 1997 World Series. As evidence, on May 11 they fired manager Jeff Torborg after a 16-22 start, and hired the 72-year-old McKeon to turn things around.

That they did, as the Marlins rebounded from a 19-29 start to go 75-49 the rest of the way, but there was no lower point than the turn of events of June 27.

With pretty much the same cast of characters that would stun the baseball world in October, the Marlins took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first on an RBI single by newly signed Pudge Rodriguez. In the bottom of the first, Pavano took the mound, Sox centerfielder Johnny Damon dug in to take his licks, and the fun was just about to begin.

Called strike one. Called strike two. And then ... Damon doubled down the right-field line. Second baseman Todd Walker followed with a single up the middle, scoring Damon to tie the score, before Nomar Garciaparra doubled off the Monster, sending Walker to third. When Manny Ramirez followed with a three-run homer to left, the bases were momentarily cleared and Boston had a 4-1 lead. But as Al Pacino said in Scent of a Woman, "I’m just getting warmed up!" Lefty slugger David Ortiz pulled a double down the line, and Kevin Millar duplicated Walker’s earlier feat by singling up the middle and scoring Ortiz. Five to one. Amazingly, Pavano was done after just six batters, six hits, and 22 pitches (14 strikes). Whether he needed to shower after this outing was unknown.

Michael Tejera replaced Pavano, and after Trot Nixon singled to right for the Sox’ seventh straight base knock, slacker Bill Mueller — who would ultimately become the AL batting champ but was only batting eighth — broke up the hit parade with a walk. With the bases juiced, catcher Jason Varitek resumed the merry-go-round with a solid single to center, scoring Millar and Nixon. It was now 7-1, but there were still no outs and the Red Sox faithful were dumbstruck even as they were still making their way to their seats.

So there was Damon and the top of the order again, and the clean-shaven outfielder — who claimed post-game to have had a dismal BP session prior to the game — launched a triple to the right-field corner, his second extra-base hit of the inning. With Mueller and Varitek plating runs, it was now 9-1 Sox, and the 11th batter of the inning was coming up — still with nobody out. When Walker then laced his second single of the inning, scoring Damon, McKeon had seen enough of Tejera, who had surrendered four hits and a walk in his 31-pitch outing, and in came the Marlins’ third pitcher of the game. Boston’s 10 runs scored before an out was notched had set a major-league mark and sent the team’s media staff scurrying to the record books for even more empirical single-inning data. When reliever Allen Levarault induced Garciaparra into a first-pitch pop-out to Pudge in foul territory, a mixture of mock boos and cheers erupted from the stands. The first out of the inning had finally been recorded from the home team’s 12th batter. As McKeon wiped his brow in relief, Ramirez inspired another attack of the sweats when he singled to right, sending Walker to third, before Ortiz walked to re-load the bases. Millar’s sac fly to Pierre in center resulted in the second out of the inning, but also recorded the Sox’ 11th run. Nixon walked to set up the ducks on the pond one more time, and Mueller doubled to the gap in left-center, scoring Manny and Ortiz, making it an astonishing 13-1. After Varitek collected the team’s fourth walk of the inning, there was Johnny-on-the-spot returning for his third tour of duty, and Damon unbelievably connected for his third hit of the inning with an opposite-field single. Nixon scored on the play, but Mueller became the party-pooper when he was thrown out at home trying to plate the team’s 15th run. Instead, the home team had to settle for 14 runs on 13 hits and four walks. Amazingly, the Marlins did not commit a single error the entire night despite the game’s out-of-hand nature.

The bottom of the first had lasted a robust 50 minutes, and three Marlins "pitchers" had faced 19 Sox batters and combined to toss 91 pitches — 55 for juicy strikes. Damon’s three hits during one inning tied an MLB record, and was believed to be only the second time in baseball history it had happened. Even stranger, Damon had a prime opportunity to hit for the cycle when he came up in the third inning, needing only a home run to complete the rare feat.

It was nearly 8:30 (the game began at 7:16) before the Sox came up for their second at-bats in the bottom of the second, and while the fireworks were much more muted, the home team still managed to steal a couple more runs on an Ortiz blast to right-center, making the tally 16-1 heading to the third. By this time, Pudge and third baseman Mike Lowell were already in the clubhouse resting up for the next day’s game, and they were among the few Marlins spared of watching the Sox build their improbable bulge to 17-1 in the third, when Mueller homered for his third hit of the game. In the fourth, the carnage continued at the expense of reliever Kevin Olsen, who surrendered another pair of runs on four more hits (for a four-inning total of 22) as the laugher escalated to 19-1. The folks operating the manual scoreboard behind the left-field wall — seeing the 14-2-1-2 linescore unfold in the early going — were likely frantic in the catacombs, feverishly searching for two-digit numerals that began with "3."

The sleeping giant finally awoke in the fifth, as the disgusted Marlins cobbled together three hits and an error to tally four times off of Kim and strike back at their discourteous hosts, cutting the advantage to 19-5. But no zeroes were needed on the scoreboard for the Boston side of the ledger — at least just yet — as the Sox got a double from back-up catcher Doug Mirabelli and posted run number 20 of the evening in the bottom of the fifth.

With a 15-run advantage, the Sox were finally in the clear in terms of testing their beleaguered "bullpen by committee," and manager Grady Little was for once able to entrust the Sox lead the rest of the way with the likes of Ryan Rupe, Rudy Seanez, Hector Almonte, and Jason Shiell, and even though they gave up three more runs down the stretch, the Red(-letter day) Sox added insult to injury by not only scoring five more times over the course of the seventh and eighth, but Ko-ing Olsen, Florida’s fourth reliever, with a line drive to the head off the bat of Walker in the seventh. Olsen needed to be taken off the field on a stretcher and spent the night in the hospital (all but his ego and ERA turned out fine), but Walker further antagonized McKeon’s misfits later in the inning when he tried to score (with a 21-5 lead) from third off a short fly ball to center. McKeon moaned afterwards, "We were worried when we got to the point late in the game when they had a 20-run lead ... about whether they were going to squeeze or not."

Things did get a bit ugly later in the game with some headhunting incidents, but that still didn’t stop the Sox’ unrelenting offense, as it scored four more runs in the eighth (on a couple more, ahem, sac flies) to make it 25-6 before Derrek Lee’s two-run homer in the ninth ended the scoring and mercifully put a capper on the four-hour affair. The final tallies: Boston 25 runs, 28 hits (tying a team record), one error; Florida 8-10-0. Damon ultimately went 5-for-7 with three RBIs and three runs scored (no cycle, though); Mueller went 4-for-5 with six RBIs and three runs scored; and four other Soxers had three or more hits. Boston's team batting average rose from .294 to .297 in the first inning alone, and in addition to their 25 runs, the Sox left 16 more on base.

A day later, their feelings hurt but their spirits ready to do battle again, the Marlins staged a late-game rally to stun the Sox, winning 10-9 and beginning the road that would ultimately take them to World Series glory in October.

But on this one night one year ago, one team was unstoppable and one team stunk, and no one could have guessed how the remaining chapters of the 2003 season’s story would be written.

You just had to be there.

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