2004 Red Sox Comeback vs. the Yankees

2004 Red Sox Comeback vs. the Yankees

2004 Boston Red Sox: A Comeback, Deconstructed

2004 might have been the year the Boston Red Sox finally won their first World Series in 86 years. It might have been the year they got the monkey off their back.

Setting the Stage: Boston’s Run to the ALCS

They won 98 games and finished a strong second to their old enemies, the New York Yankees, in the AL East. Despite finishing three games back of the Yankees, the Red Sox owned a winning record against their rivals and had the feeling of a team of destiny. They’d slumped at midseason but had finished the regular season on a tear, closing a 10.5-game gap to finish just three games back.

They thrashed a good Anaheim Angels team in the division series, three games to nada, and were licking their chops for a chance at the Yankees in the American League Championship Series. The Yankees, despite winning 101 games, had the look of a team living on borrowed time. They’d given up more runs and scored fewer than the Sox.

Still, they were the Yankees. They’d dropped their ALDS opener to the Minnesota Twins before edging them out in three straight games to advance.

The Red Sox still had every reason to be confident, with a rotation anchored by Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez, and a lineup featuring two of the greatest sluggers of the 2000s in Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. None of it yet hinted at the 2004 Red Sox comeback that was about to unfold.

Down 0-3: The Yankees Take a Stranglehold

Game 1: New York Draws First Blood

Then, on Tuesday, October 12th, the hammer dropped and the Red Sox learned a little something about playoff baseball. The Bombers opened up a quick 8-0 lead, rocking Schilling, before coasting to a 10-7 victory in Game 1.

Game 2: Pedro Falls Short

In Game 2, Pedro Martinez performed better, giving up three runs, but got no support as the Sox fell again, 3-1.

Game 3: The Fenway Massacre

With their two best hurlers spent, facing a must-win Game 3, Boston turned to 27-year-old Bronson Arroyo. The crowd at Fenway exuded giddy, nervous energy. Down two games to none, this was for all the marbles. Arroyo was not sharp. He gave up three runs in the first inning before the Red Sox battled back to take a 4-3 lead in the second. It was just a tease, though, and the Yankees’ floodgates opened.

The game lasted four hours and twenty minutes. By the time it was over, the Yankees had not only won 19-7, but they had destroyed hope. The series stood at 3-0. Three-nil.

To call it a deficit is to call the Grand Canyon a hole in the ground. Good luck climbing out of it. Don’t even bother.

Game, set, and match.

No one had ever come back from three games down, and no one else (save the Cubs) had the weight of nearly a century of bad luck and failure pressing down on them. To make matters worse, it was the Yankees they were facing. There’s no enemy like an old enemy. Of course the Yankees were going to win. The Yankees always won.

Game Four: The 2004 Red Sox Comeback Begins

Game 4 was the very next day, October 17th, 2004. From the get-go, it looked like more of the same. The Yankees’ hitting wasn’t quite as sharp, but they did enough to take a 4-3 lead to the bottom of the ninth. The Yankees were 17-7 in clinching games under Joe Torre, and Mariano Rivera was taking the mound.

The Sandman. The greatest relief pitcher of all time, bar none, no question. It was already over, and everyone knew it.

So, yeah, 2004 might have been the year the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years — if they hadn’t run into that New York buzzsaw.

Right then, though, when it was already over, a funny thing happened. A graphic appeared on the screen announcing that Rivera had blown only 14 saves in 170 chances since 2001, against everyone but the Red Sox. Against the Red Sox, he had blown 7 saves in 22 chances.

I remember seeing that number on TV. I’d been carrying my dinner plate back to the kitchen, and I stopped and looked at it. I read it twice, to be sure. When I was sure, I set my plate on the floor and I sat down beside it.

Some crazy fool in the bleacher seats held up a sign that said “Four More Games!” and I thought, “My God! He still believes this could happen.” That Mariano Rivera might be human — that he might have an Achilles heel! — had never crossed my mind, and then he began to pitch.

Inside, ball one to Kevin Millar. Next pitch, fouled off.

The clock ticked over to midnight. I remembered another Game 4 that had gone to midnight, when Derek Jeter had walked off against the Diamondbacks in the 2001 Fall Classic. I got a chill down my spine.

Inside, ball two.

Inside, ball three. The crowd begins to roar.

Ball four, and suddenly I believe. Bill Mueller is coming to the plate, Bill Mueller who had already walked off once against Rivera just a few months prior.

He doesn’t walk it off this time, but he ties it with a single. Rivera buckles down, of course, and we go to extra innings.

Someone is flashing a sign that says, “The Greatest Comeback in Sports History,” and I smile.

If you need to be told how this game ends, go watch the videos. Don’t make me tell you. The text will never do it justice.

The Red Sox survived that night, and that win kicked off the 2004 Red Sox comeback that would carry them past the Yankees and, eventually, to that long-awaited championship. They survived the next three games as well, but that is another story.