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REVERSING THE CURSE,
PART 2
PEDRO
& TEK COME TO TOWN
Mo brings home
another game winner
April 20, 1998 ... Mo
Vaughn's game-winning single in the 11th inning Marathon Day, this
season-opening homestand came to resemble one long wonderful,
improbable, don't-you-dare-leave-your-seats comeback by the Red Sox.
A game that
began this morning with the lights turned on at Fenway Park ended with the sun
breaking through the clouds and shining once more upon the home team, when
Vaughn slapped an 0-and-2 pitch from reliever Eric Plunk into right field to
score bat-twirling Jim Leyritz with the deciding run in a 6-5 win over the
Cleveland Indians.
A crowd of
33,001, kept overtime by Leyritz's game-tying home run off Indians closer Mike
Jackson leading off the ninth, was slow to exit, sorry to see the Red Sox leave
for Detroit after the team's best homestand in five years, nine wins in 10
games.
Only an
injury to Red Sox starter Butch Henry, who was scheduled to undergo an MRI on
his left knee last night, dampened the exhilaration in the home clubhouse.
The
homestand began 11 days ago with a sweep of the Seattle Mariners, winners of the
American League West last season, ended with three wins out of four games
against the Indians, AL champions last season, and featured six wins in Boston's
last at-bat.
For a wakeup
call, the Red Sox had Bragg's second-inning home run into the triangle off
Indians starter Bartolo Colon, his fifth successive hit in two games. Bragg
later would double and made a huge throw from center field in the ninth, nailing
late-starting Jim Thome who tried to stretch a near-home run high off the wall
into a double.
Working only
part-time, Jim Leyritz did as much as anybody to make this homestand memorable:
a .455 average (10 hits in 22 at-bats), four home runs, including two in the
ninth inning when the Red Sox were down a run, eight RBIs, and six runs. His
home run off Jackson today carried 405 feet into the center-field triangle. Two
innings later, with two out and nobody on, he shot a ground ball through the
left side for a single, and took second when Plunk committed the cardinal sin of
walking Damon Buford on four pitches, with Vaughn on deck.
Vaughn,
batting .375 with a team-leading 18 RBIs, fouled off Plunk's first two pitches
before delivering the winner. For the Red Sox, there couldn't be a better
sendoff to their five-game trip to Detroit and Cleveland. |
