Red Sox Ace Out Indians

By MIKE DiGIOVANNA

Oct. 12, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

CLEVELAND —

It wasn’t quite Willis Reed limping into Game 7 of the 1970 NBA finals against the Lakers or Kirk Gibson hobbling around the basepath on his home run that won Game 1 of the 1988 World Series for the Dodgers.

This is, after all, only the first round of the playoffs.

But what Pedro Martinez lacked in timing he more than made up for in drama, coming off the shelf to pitch six hitless relief innings Monday night to lead the Boston Red Sox to a 12-8 victory over the Cleveland Indians in the decisive fifth game of the American League division series.

Red Sox left fielder Troy O’Leary stunned a Jacobs Field crowd of 45,114, not to mention Indian Manager Mike Hargrove, by following two intentional walks to Nomar Garciaparra with home runs, a grand slam in the third and a three-run shot in the seventh.

That helped Boston become only the fifth team to overcome a 2-0 deficit to win a best-of-five series and earned the Red Sox a spot opposite their archrivals, the New York Yankees, in the AL championship series, with Game 1 scheduled for Wednesday night in Yankee Stadium.

“I’ve been on both sides, and I know how much these teams hate each other,” said Boston first baseman Mike Stanley, a former Yankee. “Fans mark their calendars at the beginning of every year for when the other team is coming to town, and we both have some of the rowdiest fans around. This is one of the biggest rivalries in the game.”

Boston pitcher Kent Mercker had a little message for the Yankees, touching off a wild postgame celebration in the Red Sox clubhouse by jumping up and down on a platform and yelling, “They better sweep us! They better sweep us!”

The implication: The Indians led this division series, 2-0, and were poised to sweep, but the pesky Red Sox would not let them. They won three in a row when no one thought they could, and that made the champagne taste a little sweeter.

“What a game! What a series, huh?” said third baseman John Valentin, who had two RBIs Monday, giving him 12 in the series. “We have a lot of fight. That’s the type of team we are.”

They have rhythm, too. The salsa music was blaring and the Red Sox were bouncing up and down in unison when Martinez entered the postgame party. The ace was immediately doused by about 25 bottles of champagne, and why not? He’s the heart and soul of this team and showed why in Game 5.

The first 3 1/2 innings Monday night wasn’t so much baseball as it was three-on-three, half-court basketball: game to 21, gotta win by two. The score was tied, 8-8, the teams combined for 13 hits, five of them homers, and it appeared they might top Sunday night’s record-setting, 30-run slugfest.

Enter Martinez. Exit Indians. Martinez, minus the overpowering fastball but hitting his spots, blanked the Indians the rest of the way, striking out eight.

“That was one of the gutsiest performances I’ve ever seen,” Red Sox pitching Coach Joe Kerrigan said. “We thought we might be able to get an inning or two out of him. We honestly didn’t know. He amazes everybody.”

Martinez said his back began to loosen after two innings, and once he got his adrenaline flowing, he felt even better.

“I decided I was the one who had to be out there,” Martinez said. “I knew I couldn’t throw my fastball as hard as I could, so I just tried to make good pitches. Knowing we had the lead and had to keep it kept me going.”

Indian reliever Sean DePaula’s three hitless innings kept the score tied, but Valentin led off the seventh with an infield single off Paul Shuey and took second on Brian Daubach’s slow roller to second.

Hargrove ordered Garciaparra intentionally walked for the second time, and O’Leary, who hit the first pitch after an intentional walk to Garciaparra in the third for a grand slam, smacked Shuey’s first pitch to him just over the wall in right for a three-run homer and an 11-8 lead.

“This is the biggest night of my life,” said O’Leary, who went 0 for 6 Sunday night. “[Teams have been walking Nomar] all year because of the player he is. Sometimes I respond, and sometimes I don’t. Tonight was a good night.”

That may be the understatement of the year from one of the Red Sox’s most understated players, a 30-year-old who had his best season in 1999, hitting .280 with 28 homers and 103 RBIs. But, like everyone else in Boston, O’Leary spent the year in the shadows of Garciaparra and Martinez.

“Who is this guy? Who is this masked man? Where did he come from?” Red Sox Manager Jimy Williams said. “He’s a quiet kid who doesn’t like to talk about what he’s done, but you talk about coming up big in a game. What a tremendous effort.”

The same could not be said of Monday night’s starting pitchers, who were working on three days’ rust, er, rest. Both looked awful, Red Sox right-hander Bret Saberhagen giving up five runs in one inning and Indian right-hander Charles Nagy getting rocked for eight runs--seven earned--in three innings.

Garciaparra’s two-run homer in the first put Boston in front, Jim Thome’s lunar shot of a two-run homer in the first--it measured 477 feet--gave Cleveland a 3-2 lead, and when Hargrove elected to walk Garciaparra to load the bases for O’Leary in the third, O’Leary responded with the first postseason slam in Red Sox history, turning a 5-3 deficit into a 7-5 lead.

The cushion lasted about as long as it takes one of Thome’s homers to leave the yard. Roberto Alomar opened the third with a double off reliever Derek Lowe, Manny Ramirez ended his division series drought at 0 for 16 with an RBI double to right-center, and Thome blasted a 431-foot, two-run homer to center to give the Indians an 8-7 lead.

But the Indians threw it away in the top of the fourth when they out-gaffed the Red Sox. Darren Lewis doubled, Offerman walked, and Lewis, thinking there was a runner on first, began trotting to third.

Lewis came to his senses about halfway to third and sprinted back to second, but catcher Sandy Alomar’s throw nicked off Vizquel’s glove and went into center field, allowing Lewis to take third. Valentin followed with a sacrifice fly to pull the Red Sox even, 8-8, and they broke the tie in the seventh.

“We have a lot of heart on this team,” O’Leary said, “and Pedro showed it tonight.”

So did O’Leary.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Closing the Deal

A look at how the Indians fared before Pedro Martinez entered the game and after:

*--*

BEFORE AFTER

17 Batters 21 8 Runs 0 7 Hits 0 3 Doubles 0 3 Homers 0 1 Walks 3 2 Strikeouts 8

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Comebacks

Boston became the fifth team to win a five-game playoff series after losing the first two games:

AMERICAN LEAGUE