The 2017 AL East champion Boston Red Sox featured impact players all over the field, and chief among them was the long lefty that anchored the starting rotation. 

Chris Sale looked primed to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer on August 1st, 2017. He was 13-4 with a 2.37 ERA. He had surrendered only 103 hits, striking out 211 and walking only 27 in 148.1 innings. This Tuesday evening contest was a “Sale Day,” a sentiment which was repeated several times at the start of the game by Red Sox play-by-play man Dave O’Brien.

Sale Days in 2017 largely resembled the Pedro Days of the late 90s and early 2000s. They were must-see TV throughout most of the 2017 season for Red Sox fans, who enthusiastically reveled in each 98-mph heater and sidewinding slider as Sale bulldozed the league on his way to recording a league-leading 308 strikeouts. Sale dominated Major League lineups like no other pitcher in 2017. 

Until August 1st. 

On this night, the Cleveland Indians showed the world that the Chris Sale of 2017 was a mere mortal after all.

Oh well. At least the Red Sox still had a great closer. 

Right?  

The Red Sox went into this game with a record of 58-49, a half-game behind the Yankees for first place in the AL East. The Indians, who had lost in seven games to the 108-year-old curse-breaking Cubs in the 2016 World Series, were two games ahead of the Royals for first place in the AL Central. Each team had championship aspirations and rosters full of talent. That talent was well represented by the starting pitching matchup for this game. 

Sale faced off against Indians hurler Carlos Carrasco, who was also enjoying the best season of his career. At 10-4 with a 3.58 ERA, 135 strikeouts, and 31 walks in 123.1 innings pitched, Carrasco would have been the ace of the Cleveland staff had it not been for a dominant Cy Young Award winner named Corey Kluber. 

This game had all the makings of a classic pitcher’s duel. What happened over the next nine innings, however, was anything but that. 

Though you’ll never hear it from Sale, I believe that this game was the first time in 2017 that the 6’6″ flamethrower felt any discomfort in his left arm. He fought through the rest of the season. In fact, he was nothing short of dominant in his next two starts. But August 1st was the first time that season where he flat out didn’t have it. Sox fans will remember that he struggled at the end of the 2017 season, being knocked around by the Houston Astros in Game 1 of the ALDS in his final start of the campaign. My theory is that his arm started to bother him in the very first inning of this game, and that he played through a significant amount of pain from this night forward. 

His lack of command was evident from the very first inning.

Francisco Lindor and Brandon Guyer reached on weak infield singles to start the game, and Michael Brantley followed with a 3-1 grounder through the hole on the left side to give Cleveland a 1-0 lead. None of those balls were smoked, but the very idea of Sale giving up singles to the first three hitters of a ballgame … even the idea of Sale not striking out any of the first three batters of the game, had felt like an impossibility before this night. His command was clearly off. 

Believe it or not, Jose Ramirez actually bailed Sale out by dropping down a sacrifice bunt attempt. Sale fielded the ball cleanly and flipped to third to retire the lead runner. Red Sox murderer Edwin Encarnacion then whiffed for the second out, which gave Sale a chance to escape the early jam with but a single run scored. However, Indians first baseman Carlos Santana planted a two-run double off the Green Monster to plate two more. A stifled Fenway crowd watched the Red Sox come to bat for the first time of the evening already buried in a 3-0 hole.

It got even more surreal in the top of the second when Brandon Guyer, a bench player whose claim to fame was once being hit by 31 pitches in a season, rocked a 0-1 fastball over everything in left for just his second home run of the season to put Cleveland up 5-0. 

On paper, the Red Sox lineup for this night looked rather pedestrian. The hot bats coming into the game belonged to Eduardo Nunez; who had just been dealt to Boston at the trade deadline a few days before, and Christian Vazquez; who had ten hits in his last 20 at bats. Xander Bogaerts was in the midst of the worst year of his career, Mookie Betts was hitting a meager .270, and Dustin Pedroia had just hit the archaic Disabled List with a knee injury that would limit his season to 105 games. Nunez, who was never known for swinging a big bat, was traded to Boston in the middle of an absolute tear and actually replaced Pedroia in the three-hole for this game. 

After a scoreless first inning, the Boston bats got to work in the second. Jovial rookie Rafael Devers, who was playing in the seventh game of his career (yet already hitting .417 with a 1.231 OPS), drew a walk. Bogaerts then doubled to left-center, which brought up one of the best clutch hitters to don a Red Sox uniform in the past half-century, Mitch Moreland.

Moreland did what Moreland does, cranking a three-run missile into the right field bleachers to spark the Red Sox offense and get them back into the game. The rally continued from there with an RBI single from Brock Holt and an RBI double from Nunez. After only two innings, Carrasco had hit the showers and this game was tied at five .

As this was a slugfest at Fenway Park and Edwin Encarnacion was in the building, it was only a matter of time before the Cleveland DH got in on the fun. With two outs in the top of the fifth, Encarnacion launched a 3-2 Sale slider onto Landsdowne Street to put the Indians back on top 7-5. Sale’s night was done after five innings, only the second time on the season he had pitched less than six full. 

Hanley Ramirez did his best to cut the new deficit in half in the sixth. He smoked a long fly ball to right-center that looked destined to land in the Red Sox bullpen. However, he was mercilessly denied when centerfielder Austin Jackson made undoubtedly one of the five best MLB plays of the past ten years.

Drifting on the warning track to his left, Jackson leapt into the air and caught the ball just as he crashed into the fence, somehow holding onto the ball as he tumbled head-over-heels into the bullpen. It was a miraculous play at a big moment in the game, an unforgettable catch that sucked the wind out of Fenway for the second time that night.

Even more shocking than the catch was the fact that Jonny Gomes, undoubtedly the worst color commentator in the history of NESN, was stupefied that the play was ruled a catch.

Jackson clearly caught the ball in mid-air before falling into the bullpen, and the bullpen camera captured a perfect shot of him falling over the fence, hitting the ground, and popping up to reveal that the ball had never left his glove. Yet Gomes, a guy who actually played Major League Baseball for 12 years, was convinced that the play should have been ruled a home run because Jackson fell over the fence after catching it.

O’Brien was a good soldier and humored his partner’s nonsensical boobery to the extent that these two actually spent much of the next inning talking about the play … glossing over how amazing the catch was so they could focus on confirming that it was properly ruled a catch. They even read the rule to the audience watching at home, even though Gomes is the only person in history to ever see every angle of the play and still think for even a fraction of a second that it was not an out.  

This game came down to a battle between the top two bullpens in baseball. Red Sox reliever Blaine Boyer did his best to temper the offensive onslaught by escaping a bases loaded, nobody out jam in the top of the sixth by inducing a shallow flyout and a 6-4-3 double play. The Cleveland pen, however, was not as lucky. 

Bryan Shaw surrendered a quick run on a double by Moreland and singles by Vazquez and Betts. With the score 7-6, old friend Terry Francona made the move to one of the nastiest lefties in the game, former Red Sox pitcher Andrew Miller. 

Francona had ridden Miller’s dominance all the way to game seven of the 2016 World Series, and he continued using him as a multi-inning setup man throughout 2017. In 45 appearances coming into this game, Miller had struck out 77 hitters while walking only 14 in 53.1 innings to the tune of a 1.52 ERA. Statistics aside, the Red Sox managed to get to Miller and take the lead. 

Righty Chris Young, pinch hitting for Brock Holt, was promptly hit in the foot with a slider to load the bases. That brought up Nunez, who pelted the Green Monster for the second time with a three-run double to give Boston its first lead of the game, 9-7. 

While no runs were scored in the seventh, each half of the inning was remarkable in its own right. 

In the top of the seventh, Matt Barnes actually retired the side in order. Remember when that used to happen?

In the bottom of the inning, O’Brien congratulated former Red Sox ace Jon Lester for not only hitting a home run that night for the Cubs, but also for recording his 2,000th career strikeout in the same game. Gomes commented on Lester’s remarkable achievement with the equally remarkable comment, “And I think he holds the record for being the terriblest hitter ever.” 

Addison Reed, who was traded to the Red Sox along with Eduardo Nunez at the trade deadline, had been red hot leading up to the trade. Acquired by Red Sox GM Dave Dombrowski to be the setup man for Craig Kimbrel, Reed had surrendered only four runs in his last 15 appearances as the closer for the New York Mets. So naturally, he gave up a solo homer to the very first hitter he saw as a member of the Red Sox. Carlos Santana’s solo shot over the Red Sox bullpen to leadoff the eighth inning trimmed the Red Sox lead to one, 9-8. 

Craig Kimbrel held down the Red Sox bullpen throughout 2017 the same way Chris Sale anchored the starting rotation. Kimbrel had converted 25 of his 28 save opportunities to this point, striking out an incredible 80 hitters while walking only seven in 43.2 innings. He was no stranger to one-run saves against good teams, and he’d shut down lineups far more dangerous than the 2017 Indians in his day. No pitcher was safe on this night though, and Kimbrel fared no better than Sale, Carrasco, Miller or Reed. 

After getting ahead of Francisco Lindor 0-2 to begin the ninth inning, Kimbrel left a fastball out over the plate. Lindor lofted it to the opposite field and it dropped into the first row of Monster seats, tying the game at nine.

After retiring the next two hitters, Kimbrel surrendered two-out singles to Ramirez and Encarnacion, then issued a walk to Santana. With Austin Jackson at the plate, Kimbrel then lost his grip on a knuckle-curve that Christian Vazquez failed to block. The ball skittered off to the backstop, allowing Ramirez to score the go-ahead run.

10-9, Cleveland. 

Boston’s two dominant hurlers bookended the game with dreadful performances, and the Red Sox found themselves three outs from defeat. 

Jonny Gomes did his best to salvage the evening for the NESN viewers with a two-piece oratorical combination that would have made Walter Cronkite green with envy.

Commenting about the whirlwind action that had taken place at Fenway thus far, Gomes deadpanned in a style reminiscent of Ben Stein, “it’s been … an … absolute … emotional … rollercoaster.”

Moments later, he remarked about the tenor of the Fenway Faithful. “Frustrated right now, excited earlier, frustrated earlier … we’ve covered all six senses tonight.”

Jackie Bradley Jr. began the bottom of the ninth by striking out because he’s Jackie Bradley Jr. After a Devers infield single, Bogaerts flew out to center field. That left Mitch Moreland as the Red Sox’ last hope.

With ice water in his veins, as always, Moreland worked an epic eight pitch at bat against Indians closer Cody Allen, fouling off four pitches to drive Allen’s pitch count up to 18. 

The eighth pitch of the at bat was in the dirt. Moreland tried to check his swing, but couldn’t control the head of the bat and clearly went around. However, strike three bounced away from catcher Yan Gomes and ricocheted to his left. Moreland scrambled to first base, reaching on what should have been the final out of the game.

With the tying and winning runs now on base, Christian Vazquez stepped to the plate with two hits already recorded on the night. A tiring Allen threw three pitches to the Red Sox number nine hitter, who watched them all go by to get ahead in the count, 2-1. The fourth skipped to the backstop for another wild pitch, allowing Devers and Moreland to move to second and third.

With Boston trailing 10-9 and the tying and winning runs in scoring position, Yan Gomes walked out to the mound to calm his pitcher down. With first base open, Allen worked from the windup as Vazquez settled in for the 3-1 pitch. Allen’s glove bounced as he pivoted, then he rocked back and fired a crotch-high fastball right down the middle.

Vazquez pounced.

It was his only swing of the at-bat, as if he’d been conserving his energy so he could launch the ball far enough to not only win the game, but to make a statement. The ball lifted into orbit to dead center field. Austin Jackson took a handful of halfhearted steps in pursuit, but everyone in the park knew this ball would not be landing anywhere on the field of play. The pill settled into the net beside the yellow line that divides the Monster from the center field bleachers. It rebounded off the mesh back into the night sky, and every Indian on the field had started his long walk of shame back to the dugout long before it hit the ground.

Vazquez flipped his bat into the air, looked into the Boston dugout, and pounded his chest once as he began his triumphant trip around the bases. He pulled off his helmet as he rounded third base and fired it high into the air. His teammates swarmed him as he crossed home plate to make it official.

12-10. Red Sox win.

“How do you even begin to explain that game?” asked O’Brien.

Jonny Gomes then added his first and only coherent statement of the entire broadcast. “Who would have thought you’d have to pick up Chris Sale, and then pick up Craig in the same game? And the boys did.”

The Red Sox bats bailed out the two best arms on the team on a night where every good pitcher in the building inexplicably lost their powers as if the Green Monster were made of kryptonite.  The victory put the Red Sox back into first place by a half game over the Yankees. They’d continue to ride the arms of Sale and Kimbrel, along with the bats of Betts, Devers, Moreland, Ramirez, and several others until finally hitting a brick wall (and a trash can) in the ALDS against the eventual-champion Houston Astros.

They were still a year away from a parade, but the Red Sox were well on their way to their second straight AL East title. And no game they played in 2017 was more action packed or memorable than the night when the bats stepped in for Sale and Kimbrel and took matters into their own hands.

It was the first walk-off home run of Christian Vazquez’ career. But it damn sure wasn’t the last.

 

By Luke

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