This much at least differed between this weekend's Boston Massacre and the one which helped to send the Red Sox toward eventual sinking 28 years before: come Sunday, there was no doghouse-sitting manager burying his best pitcher against the Yankees and deciding a barely-tested kid with one loss for major league experience, but "ice water in his veins" was a better pick to stop the carnage than Luis Tiant.
This time, the Gerbil wasn't running the show from the dugout. But the first World Series-winning Red Sox manager since Rough Bill Carrigan was. This time, it wasn't Bobby Sprowl thrown up in place of El Tiante to take the beating of his young and short major league life. But it was Curt Schilling thrown up in place of nobody, nohow, fresh from telling anyone who'd listen that the Red Sox had nothing on their mind but winning a division title — after they won Sunday, of course.
If they won Sunday.
Schilling did his job. Seven innings' mostly magnificent work, Jason Giambi's fourth-inning three-run bomb the only interference.
David Ortiz (what a surprise) delivered the one that should have mattered off Yankee reliever Randy Villone, after starter Mike Mussina had to leave the game with a tightening groin before he could throw even one bottom-of-the-fifth pitch. Villone threw a pitch that Ortiz deposited in the right field seats to bust a three-all tie.
Two innings later, Kevin Youkilis drove home a preliminary insurance policy with a base hit up the pipe, and all the Red Sox bullpen had to do was get the final six outs unmolested, if they could.
Actually, it was all Jonathan Papelbon had to do if he could. Provided he didn't mind coming in with the bases loaded and nobody out and brushing off a sacrifice fly (Giambi) to pound a pair of strikeouts before getting himself through the ninth. A leadoff double and a wild pitch is one thing, but two more strikeouts deserves better than Derek Jeter dumping a quail into right to tie it at five.
It sure as hell deserved better than the Red Sox stranding the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth after Big Papi treated them to a leadoff double off The Mariano himself. Better than Giambi lining one into the bullpen just beyond the gamely charging Coco Crisp, playing deep enough to have even a cursory chance of getting over from center field to try for it, getting a piece of his glove on it before slamming the low fence and dinging his wrist. Better than Robinson Cano driving a one-out double into the left field corner and Jorge Posada wrapping a two-run bomb just around the Pesky Pole and the Red Sox able to do nothing with a two-out single in the bottom of the 10th.
At least the 8-5 Yankee win wasn't a massacre within the massacre.
If you wanted to see it this way, this time the Red Sox came into Sunday's meeting with considerably less of a massacre scoring deficit. The Yankees outscored them 39-20 in winning the first three of the weekend set before Schilling hit the mound. They'd battered the Red Sox for 35-5 in the games prior to Don Zimmer sending Ice Water Sprowl to the Sunday mound and a sheaf of saved articles including Lee's barbs under Carl Yastrzemski's pleading eyes. (Yastrzemski begged Zimmer to bury the hatchet and send Lee to the Sunday hill, and Zimmer remained bent on burying the hatchet into Lee's skull alone.)
What the Red Sox lacked in 1978, however, was a signature former teammate wreaking a preponderance of the pre-Sunday havoc. And if the Red Sox go to the finish line short of a division title and packing for the winter (at this writing, it looks as though the wildcard winner is likelier to belong to the American League Central), the Nation may look back on this weekend and shudder while looking back on last winter wanting to burn a team president in effigy. Or a third baseman.
This is what lowballing Johnny Damon after squeezing Theo Epstein out for what proved a short vacation got the Red Sox: the former spiritual leader of the former Idiots entered Sunday with a series resume showing a .750 batting average (9-for-12) with three doubles, two bombs, and 8 RBI, not to mention one smooth sliding outfield catch that turned Alex Gonzalez's likely RBI hit into a mere sacrifice fly for a second out in the bottom of the sixth.
The next half-inning, Mike Lowell misplayed Derek Jeter's one-out low-liner to third, with the Red Sox behind a mere run — and the Yankees were off and romping from the end of Lowell's 70-game errorless streak. The Empire Emeritus ended up sweeping a day-night doubleheader 12-4 and 14-11 before burying Josh Beckett and the Olde Towne Team 13-5 in a Saturday matinee. Had it not been a mere season-and-a-half since The Curse had been clipped, Red Sox Nation Sunday night would have seen the ghosts of Ice Water and the Gerbil dancing atop the Monster's edge.
Even before Sunday was born, Theo Epstein slipped forth to try keeping any panic from more than fleeting thoughts. "Things haven't changed because we lost three games, things haven't changed because we're thinner pitching-wise than we want to be," Epstein told reporters after the Saturday smothering. "We're still on the road to get where we want to be. You don't start questioning everything about your processes because of a moment like this."
But you might start questioning how the Boston bullpen got overworked enough to be little enough relief for faltering starters that Papelbon wasn't even seen in warmup mode the first three games ... but Mike Myers, who'd performed splendidly enough as a Red Sox situational southpaw for seasons enough, was allowed to escape to New York and turn up out of the Yankee 'pen to get two explosive outs (named Ortiz and Manny Ramirez) and the win in the second Friday game.
By the time Schilling took his customary moment of silence at the back of the mound, before opening for business against Damon himself, the Yankees had completed an eight-games-in-the-standings turnaround since July 1st, when the Red Sox sat four and a half up in first, the Red Sox sat having lost 10 of 14 and four and a half back. By the time, he'd clipped the Yankees in the top of the first (an arduously-earned groundout lure to Damon, a just-as-arduous called punchout on Jeter, and an equally-laborious swish upon Bobby Abreu, whose bat has revived well enough since his trade from Philadelphia), Schilling looked like he'd been there, done that, and couldn't wait to do it again.
The good news was that his mates made him want it even more after they got finished in the bottom of the first. After Crisp (an offseason trade arrival, whose maiden Boston season has been obstructed by injuries) fouled out to open, Mark Loretta and David Ortiz swatted back-to-back singles off Mike Mussina, with Loretta helping himself to third after Damon bobbled Ortiz's knock, before Ramirez banged Loretta home with a double off the center field wall and Youkilis swatted one up the pipe to send Big Papi home.
And after Schilling followed up that 2-0 first-inning gift with a three-and-three top of the second, the not-so-friendly Fenway skies opened up with almost an hour's rain delay. The Red Sox went scoreless in the bottom of the second when the skies closed up enough to let them have back at it. Schilling and Mussina swapped shutout halves in the third, but the Yankees got frisky in the top of the fourth, with Jeter and Abreu singling back to back and bringing up Giambi with nobody out and pinstripes on the corners.
Schilling vs. Giambi began with two strikes. It continued with 2-2. And it ended over the right field fence and with the Red Sox down by a run yet again. Ever the warrior, Schilling shook off Alex Rodriguez's followup single by getting Cano to dial Area Code 4-6-3. And he shook off a rare followup walk to Posada by getting Melky Cabrera to ground one to shortstop to keep the Yankee lead to a single run.
That lead lived long enough for Ramirez to open the bottom of the fourth with a single up the pipe before Youkilis forced him at second, but Lowell singled Youkilis to third and, after Wily Mo Pena flied to right, Doug Mirabelli — all .197 hitting worth of him — singled to right to send home Youkilis, before Mussina got Alex Cora to ground out to second to keep it tied at three.
But while Schilling eased on through the Yankee fifth (Nick Green: swish; Damon: grounder to second; Jeter: fly to the back of the outfield), Mussina's night ended with groin tightness before he could throw a single pitch in the Red Sox fifth. (He'd had a similar problem at the beginning of the month.) After Ortiz took advantage of Villone, Ramirez reached on a followup walk and Youkilis flied out for the side, but the Red Sox had their second lead of the night and only their third during the series.
With one out in the Yankee sixth, Schilling dodged a bullet of his own misfiring, throwing wild enough to let Abreu (a leadoff single) take third on a busted pickoff attempt. But A-Rod popped out to his counterpart Lowell and Cano lined out to Cora at short and that's how short was the threat. The Red Sox pressed Villone in their half (leadoff and two-out singles), but he got Crisp to ground out to first for the side; Schilling withstood two fly outs in the top of the seventh (Jorge Posada, to left; Cabrera, to center) to drop strike three in on Nick Green.
Now came the opportunity of the night for the Olde Towne Team: they had Loretta, Ortiz, and Ramirez on the bottom of the seventh schedule. All they had to do was get through Myers. Loretta did his part, working Myers for a full-count walk, but Myers did his real job: he drew Ortiz into a ground out to first. Then he walked Ramirez on the house before handing off to Scott Proctor for the Greek God of Walks — who proved a Greek God of Base Hits, too, singling up the pipe to send Loretta home. Cano's mishandled Lowell's grounder to load up the pads for Pena, but Proctor swished him swiftly enough and got Mirabelli to fly out to Damon in center to keep the Yankee deficit at two.
Schilling finally yielded to Mike Timlin, whom the Yankees abused for four of their seven seventh-inning runs in the Friday nightcap. And the Yankees opened their half of the eighth by threatening similar abuse, after Damon opened with a single and Jeter took first on the house after getting plunked. With Abreu licking his chops in the batter's box, out came Timlin in a huge hurry and in came Javier Lopez, a left-handed reliever freshly recalled from Pawtucket. He got ahead of Abreu 1-2 before Abreu fought him back for a bases-loading walk with Giambi coming up.
Enter Papelbon with nobody out and a six-out save assignment if he could get it. He'd had a dicey couple of scrapes against Tampa Bay and Kansas City, of all people, before righting himself against Baltimore and Detroit, and the Red Sox gods only knew he'd been well-rested over the first three games of the Yankee set. It seemed an Eighth Amendment violation, but if ever came a moment to test the kid's fortitude this was it. Especially when he wrestled Giambi to a full count.
He sort of wiggled out of it with Giambi, the big first baseman lofting one deep to right that Gabe Kapler spelling Pena hauled down for the first out and a sacrifice fly, leaving men on the corners for Rodriguez, the Red Sox lead cut to one, but a double play opportunity still alive. He fell behind 2-0 to A-Rod, then fought him back to 2-2 before he pried out the walk. Well, nobody said this was going to be child's play. He started Cano 0-1 and swished him. Then he swished Posada.
Did it look for the moment as though the Red Sox had it in the bank and cleared?
If it did, you don't know the Red Sox. Or, the Yankees. And, the alchemy therein.
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