THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO, PART 9
"IT AIN'T OVER 'TIL IT'S OVER"...
Clemens struggles for his 18th win

August 15, 1986 ... The Red Sox bashed the Tigers, 8-5, scoring all their runs in a dizzy fifth inning, collected their third straight triumph and seventh in 10 games, and preserved their four-game American League East lead over the Yankees.

And Roger Clemens, who was 0-2 in his last three starts, finally got his 18th victory, the most by any Red Sox pitcher since Dennis Eckersley won 20 in 1978. Clemens struggled and sweated for it, throwing 136 pitches in 7 2/3 innings before giving way to Joe Sambito.

He went with the fastball and worked out of a jam in the fourth. But Clemens let Darrell Evans take him into the Boston bullpen in the sixth. And he watched a seven-run lead shrink to three. But after what he has accomplished for this club, Clemens was owed a night like this, a night when he could be adequate and still prevail.

If there was a night when Clemens could have afforded it, it was tonight, when his mates batted around in a controversial fifth inning punctuated by shortstop Ed Romero's three-run screen shot, his first homer in nearly two years.

Through four innings, Boston had managed only a pair of singles by Bill Buckner off Tiger starter Walt Terrell, who had been unbeaten since the All- Star break. But when Romero led off the fifth with a walk and Wade Boggs singled him to third (Boggs going to second on the throw), the Sox had their best opening of the night and promptly made the most of it, helped by first base umpire Tom Lepperd's missed call on Marty Barrett, who was shown by replay to be beaten to the bag by Terrell on a bouncer to second baseman Lou Whitaker. That scored Romero and put Boggs on third with none out. Then Terrell, unnerved, served a wild pitch to Jim Rice, scoring Boggs. Rice lashed a single to center, scoring Barrett, and Boston led, 3- 1.

Whitaker could have dampened the rally right there, but he botched Don Baylor's double-play ball, and Rice got to second. Dwight Evans' fly to left would have ended the inning had Barrett been called out. Tigers’ manager Sparky Anderson decided to walk Buckner to get to Tony Armas, who promptly crashed a single to right, scoring Rice.

So it was 4-1, and Terrell was gone for Bill Campbell. Gedman greeted him with a double off the wall which scored Buckner, and Boston had batted around. The silliness continued. Romero whacked a 3-1 pitch into the screen for three runs, his first homer in a Boston uniform, and it was 8-1.

Whatever, it was a cushion the size of the Dionne Quints' mattress for Clemens, but he was laboring now. He struck out Kirk Gibson to lead off the sixth, but John Grubb nailed Clemens for a double and Evans crashed his 19th homer. After Chet Lemon singled home Evans and Darnell Coles, with two out in the eighth, Clemens left to a rousing ovation.

For his first 15 starts, 14 of them victories, Clemens’ 18th victory on August 15th can be considered vaguely disappointing, but it says something about what kind of a season it has been on Yawkey Way.

Midway through the fifth month of the season, the Red Sox are still sitting atop the division while their rivals slip and scramble beneath them. But the Tigers and everybody else are chasing Boston now. The difference between Detroit and the others, though, is that the Tigers only have the remainder of one weekend left with the Red Sox to do something about it directly. The fact is that Boston now has seven games on Detroit in the AL East, and that the Tigers were braced for a loss as it was.