Page 306 - 1975 BoSox

’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL 299
might have been if only they’d gotten the World Series back home.
Pitch counts were rarely considered beyond a pitching coach with a clicker in the 1970s, but even in this hardy era, mouths were agape at the Herculean, 163-pitch e ort by Tiant, pitching on three days’ rest. El Tiante was seemingly on the brink of brilliance or disaster with every pitch in Game Four. e twirling,whirling dervish reaching back in mid-motion to pick out some new feat of magic, or maybe he was trying to secure all of New England on his back. Whatever he was doing—and however he was doing it—this was an e ort for the ages.
And he was in trouble from the start. After the Red Sox were set down by Reds starter Fred Norman in the top of the rst, Pete Rose fouled o several Tiant o erings before singling up the middle to lead o the home rst. Ken Gri ey, who had one of Cincinnati’s ve hits o Tiant in Game One, roped a ball into the gap in left-center to score Rose. With the play in front of him, Gri ey smelled triple. But Fred Lynn red the ball to Rick Burleson, whose relay to Rico Petrocelli nailed the runner at third. e old adage of “don’t make the rst or third out at third base” was upon a few lips when Joe Morgan walked and Johnny Bench doubled him home. Regardless of what might have been, the two runs in one inning were two more than the Reds managed o Tiant in nine innings in the opener.
Tiant settled down and retired the Reds in order in the second and third innings. e Red Sox left a runner on base in each of the rst three innings against Fred Norman — squandering a two-on, none-out oppor- tunity in the third — but as they’d done in Game One, the Sox pulled together one big inning for all their scoring.
e fourth began with a single by Carlton Fisk and another by Fred Lynn. Rico Petrocelli popped up for the rst out, but the runners moved into scoring posi- tion on Norman’s wild pitch. Dwight Evans belted an opposite- eld triple over Ken Gri ey’s head to tie the game. When Rick Burleson doubled to score
Evans for a 3-2 lead, Sparky Anderson bounded out of the dugout to replace Norman with Pedro Borbon. With 10 pitching changes in the World Series so far (Boston had half that many), Cincinnati’s Captain Hook was certainly living up to his name, but bringing in a reliever to face the pitcher? is wasn’t just any pitcher. It was Super Loo-ie.
Tiant had proved that the designated hitter — not yet part of the World Series — hadn’t been created to hide his batting talents. And he made his point once more, singling to center eld o Borbon and moving Burleson to third. Tiant reached base for the fourth time in six plate appearances in the Series — or three more times on base than Cecil Cooper, who’d started the rst three games but had been benched by Darrell Johnson in Game Four in favor of Juan Beniquez. Batting rst for Boston, Beniquez hit a groundball that Tony Perez couldn’t handle and Burleson scored. Carl Yastrzemski singled home Tiant from second base with the fth run of the inning—a run that Tiant and the Red Sox would be very grateful for in short order.
Tiant retired Perez and Bench to start the home fourth, but George Foster’s in eld grounder turned into a hit and Foster wound up on second base when Denny Doyle threw the ball away. Dave Concepcion’s bloop double brought home Foster, and Cesar Geronimo came up with a base open. In Game One Tiant had twice walked Geronimo intentionally to get to the pitcher, but this time a pinch-hitter was on deck. Geronimo tripled deep down the right- eld line to make the score 5-4. Now the Reds had the tying run on base, something they would do in four more innings against Tiant. None of them scored.
In the fourth, Tiant struck out pinch-hitter Terry Crowley to end the threat. In the fth, he retired Johnny Bench with the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position. In the sixth, he fanned Darrell Chaney to strand Geronimo. After a one-two-three seventh, he got Concepcion to y out to strand a runner in the eighth. In the ninth inning, Geronimo led o with a single. Ed Armbrister, a sudden bunting specialist after the previous night’s incident in which