University of Kwazulu-Natal

2004 Alcs Gm 5 Ortiz S 14th Inning Walk Off Hit Youtube

Bonisiwe Shabane
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2004 alcs gm 5 ortiz s 14th inning walk off hit youtube

The Red Sox had one win in the books, with their extra-inning Game Four win over the Yankees. They weren’t going to be swept in four games. They had fresh energy and a new lease on life, if only for one more day. And they had Pedro Martínez ready to start. And many of them had bought into Kevin Millar’s mantra before Game Four: “Don’t Let Us Win Tonight.” Bill Mueller said, “Coming right back for Game 5 was an advantage for us.

There was no stoppage. The games were running late, and then you turn right back around and do it again. I think that was a plus. You step out for two days and then come back in, some of that momentum could be squandered. Instead, it stayed at the ballpark. … It kept going in our direction.”1

Pedro Martinez was no lock against the Yankees. He had 31 starts against them in his career and the team was 11-20 in those starts. In 2004 he was 1-3 with a 5.29 ERA combining the regular season and postseason. He struck out leadoff batter Derek Jeter on three pitches. He walked Álex Rodríguez, then struck out Gary Sheffield and got Hideki Matsui to fly out to center. Mike Mussina started for the Yankees, and the Red Sox got to him for two runs in the bottom of the first.

Three singles in succession, the third one an RBI single by David Ortiz, produced the first run. A bases-loaded walk to Jason Varitek (batting right-handed against a right-handed pitcher for only the second time in his entire major-league career; he’d been 4-for-49 — .082 — against Mussina) produced the second. Fourteen frames and nearly six hours of do-or-die baseball in America’s oldest and most beloved ballpark. The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees were knotted up 4-4 with two outs and runners on first and second when David Ortiz stepped up to bat. Plunking the ball into shallow center, Johnny Damon raced home, long locks streaming behind him in the cold October air. Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS belonged to Boston.

In 2004, Ortiz was only in his second season of what would be a 14-year Red Sox career, but he’d already made himself indispensable. In the regular season, he’d earned his first All-Star appearance by hitting .301/.380/.603, and he reached 40 home runs for the first time in his then-eight-year career. He’d win his first of seven Silver Slugger awards when the postseason ended. But Ortiz had never homered in a postseason game when he played for the Minnesota Twins in their ill-fated 2002 run. He notched his first October blasts in 2003, homering twice before the Sox fell to Aaron Boone. David Ortiz joined the Boston Red Sox in 2003, and it didn’t take long for him to establish himself as a clutch postseason hitter.

Though the Sox were eliminated in seven games in the 2003 ALCS by the Yankees, Ortiz hit two home runs and drove in six that series. He was even better the next year when the Sox made a historic comeback from down 0-3 to the Yankees to win the series in seven. As stated earlier this week, LBS will be posting some great moments from recent MLB postseason history to get you pumped up for the MLB playoffs. FOX Sports will be televising much of the playoffs and this is a friendly reminder that the NLDS will be televised on FOX Sports 1. You can see the full MLB playoff TV schedule here. Today we take a look at the back-to-back walk-off hits Ortiz delivered in Games 4 and 5 of the 2004 ALCS.

Before we shared the infographic, we must go over his numbers from that series. Ortiz hit at least .308 with a 1.086 OPS in all three postseason series in 2004. His numbers in the ALCS were off the charts — he hit three home runs and drove in 11. The guy is just a postseason monster. Here is some more info on his walk-offs. After avoiding the sweep in Game 4, all I cared about was sending the series back to New York.

At least make it a respectable run before being eliminated. Please, just win this game. I was only 13-years-old during the 2004 season, but negativity was already pumping through my veins as a sports fan. I grew up around people who had seen little besides failure in their lives, and lived through some of that myself in 2003. Because of this, I had already come to grips with the fact that the Red Sox were going to lose this series. There was no way they could come back from a 3-0 deficit, and I wasn’t about to get my hopes up believing otherwise.

Still, they needed to win this game and make it a respectable series. They’d already avoided the sweep, and now they had to avoid the gentleman’s sweep. Just win this game, send it back to New York and lose there. Losing a series in six games is much more bearable than losing in four or five. I was watching the game with my brother and my parents like every other game, and that was all I could think. Just please don’t lose this one.

It’s easy to forget now, but at the time there was a good chance we were about the see Pedro Martinez wearing a Red Sox uniform for the final time. He was about to become a free agent, and the odds of the team going far enough to give him another start were slim at best. Luckily, he got off to a vintage start, striking out Derek Jeter on three pitches. It was actually an all-around good first inning for the hometown team, a startling change of pace in the series. After showing no signs of early life in the first four games - they were outscored 6-0 in the first inning in games one through four - they shot off to a 2-0 lead... It served as a nice reminder that happiness for the Red Sox to that point was futile and constantly slipping away.

We just weren’t allowed to be happy for too long at a time, and Bernie Williams let us know when he hit the first pitch of the second inning into the seats, cutting the... Things would stay this way for the next few innings, with each team putting up minor threats, but nothing coming of it. That is, until the sixth. This was the inning where I truly lost my mind. I’m not sure I was ever so sure the Red Sox would never win a World Series as I was during this inning. Pedro managed to get to this point without too much struggle, but at this stage of his career, he was approaching the time when the team had to be careful with him, especially in...

The inning started with an infield single from Jorge Posada. Seriously, an infield single from JORGE POSADA. This shit could only happen to the Red Sox. After giving up a base hit to Ruben Sierra and hitting Miguel Cairo, it was clear that Martinez was losing it quickly, and yet Boston’s bullpen was less active than god damn sloth. Derek Jeter came up to the plate, and I think we all knew what was about to happen.

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