Monday, April 28, 2014

Game of the Day (4/27/84)

Indians 8, Tigers 4 (19). Yeah, most of the time a (19) after the score is a good sign. Detroit started with Juan Berenguer, who would go on to manage an 11-10 record for a team that won almost 2/3 of its games; Cleveland responded with Rick Sutcliffe, who did his best 1984 work for another team (although he was off to a fine start; it would be a dreadful May that led up to his trade).

Berenguer did not get off to a marvelous start, as Brett Butler worked him for a walk, stole second, and scored on Julio Franco's one-out double to open the scoring. (Yes, Julio Franco played all the way back in 1984; in fact, he made his MLB debut in 1982 and was a regular in '83. That means the Franco featured here is actually Young Julio Franco, a creature whose existence has been debated by baseball scholars for generations.)

Fortunately for the Tigers, Sutcliffe's initial inning was even worse. Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell, Darrell Evans, and Lance Parrish hit consecutive singles, the latter two driving in a run each to put Detroit in front. Two outs later, Barbaro Garbey singled as well to plate Evans for a 3-1 advantage.

Garbey helped give the runs back in the top of the second when he dropped a foul fly off the bat of George Vukovich, who took advantage of the fresh opportunity to single. Otis Nixon singled as well, Butler grounded out to advance the runners, Tony Bernazard walked, and Franco singled in a pair of runs to even the score at 3.

After the eventful opening, the starters settled down considerably. Sutcliffe didn't allow another baserunner until Larry Herndon singled in the fourth, while Berenguer yielded leadoff hits in both the third and fourth (to Pat Tabler and Vukovich, respectively), eliminating Tabler on a double play and seeing Vukovich advance on a pair of outs before being stranded at third. The fifth inning passed without a baserunner; the sixth did not, as Brook Jacoby singled and was stranded in the top of the inning. The bottom of the sixth saw Sutcliffe issue three straight two-out walks (to Kirk Gibson, Herndon, and Garbey) before getting Chet Lemon to pop up and leave the bases loaded.

Berenguer was perfect in the seventh, while Sutcliffe worked around a Whitaker single. Berenguer also recorded the first two outs of the eighth, and Willie Hernandez replaced him for the third. Sutcliffe and Hernandez combined to keep the bases clear through the ninth, and the game went into extra innings tied at 3.

Butler led off the top of the tenth with a single and advanced to second on Bernazard's sacrifice bunt. Franco walked, spurring Sparky Anderson to lift Hernandez for Aurelio Lopez; Lopez struck out Andre Thornton, but then threw a wild pitch and walked both Tabler and Ron Hassey, with the second of those free passes forcing in the go-ahead run. Jacoby grounded out to end the inning.

Sutcliffe remained on the mound to open the bottom of the tenth, while Garbey was replaced at third by Tom Brookens (meaning the starting pitcher lasted longer than the starting third baseman). However, Sutcliffe was yanked immediately after allowing a leadoff double to Whitaker. Ernie Camacho permitted a Trammell single that moved the tying run to third, and was also pulled for Mike Jeffcoat; Jeffcoat coaxed a ground ball from Evans, which resulted in a double play but also brought in the tying run. Finally, George Frazier supplanted Jeffcoat and retired Parrish on a groundout, completing a four-pitcher inning that would be entirely believable as part of a 2014 game except for the fact that it was a tenth inning and the starting pitcher was still out there to begin the frame.

Much as in regulation, the early fireworks in extra innings quickly gave way to a steady progression of scoreless innings. Lopez walked a pair of hitters in the eleventh, but Nixon and Butler were both caught stealing. (Nixon had hit into a force after Vukovich drew the initial walk, so he was responsible for a delayed double play in this case.) Frazier threw perfect innings in both the eleventh and twelfth, and Lopez matched that effort in the twelfth and thirteenth.

Tom Waddell relieved Frazier in the thirteenth and didn't allow a baserunner in his first two innings of work. Lopez conceded a Nixon single and nothing else in the fourteenth, then was pulled for Glenn Abbott in the fifteenth; this replacement coincided with Marty Castillo taking over third base after Brookens had been pinch hit for the inning before. A Franco walk, a groundout, and an intentional walk to Hassey produced something of a threat, but pinch hitter Jerry Willard grounded out to end it. The bottom of the inning saw Howard Johnson single and Whitaker walk with one out; Trammell's forceout moved Johnson to third, but Evans popped up to leave him 90 feet from ending the game.

The outs returned with a vengeance starting in the sixteenth, as Abbott ran off nine in a row and Waddell matched him for the first six before being replaced by Luis Aponte in the bottom of the eighteenth; Aponte bowed to peer pressure and also retired the side in order. The most notable event in this sequence was Johnny Grubb hitting for Castillo in the bottom of the seventeenth; Castillo was the third Tiger third baseman to be replaced in the game, and they were now out of people capable of fielding the position - with one exception. Johnson took over the hot corner in the top of the eighteenth, and since he had started the game as the DH, Detroit's pitcher now entered the batting order.

Through the first 18 innings, the game had been running on something of a cycle, and it was time for runs to be scored once more. The nineteenth inning, which doubled as Abbott's fifth on the mound, did not disappoint. Vukovich led it off with a single, and the game collapsed as though it was being played on a computer that was not programmed for this many innings. Nixon laid down a bunt, and Abbott made an error allowing him to reach. Butler also attempted to sacrifice, and Abbott again blew the play, giving the Indians the bases loaded and nobody out. With the Tigers clearly refusing to accept their gift of an out via sacrifice bunt, Cleveland turned to the sacrifice fly; Bernazard lifted one to right, and Gibson dropped it. Everyone was safe yet again, and the go-ahead run scored.

Abbott nearly salvaged the inning from there, getting Franco to hit into a force at home and striking out Thornton - but Mike Hargrove followed with a game-breaking 3-run double for an 8-4 lead. Franco made an error of his own in the bottom of the inning (his eighth of the year, a truly alarming April total), but Aponte worked around it to nail down the victory.

The drama and weirdness and (especially) length of this game combine to make it 1984's best so far; after all, it's not often you see a team use only four pitchers in a game that's longer than two games, and also use four third basemen. In particular, that nineteenth inning from Abbott is... rather impressive. The back-to-back errors almost give the impression that he was of the opinion that, as an AL pitcher, at least some of his secondary duties should be handled by proxy, and since his team had given up the DH, they should have appointed a designated fielder for him instead.

As a result of Abbott and Gibson's fielding misadventures, all four of the runs that scored in the nineteenth were unearned. That makes them a match for the pair that Cleveland pushed across in the second after a dropped foul fly. This would normally be considered a pretty devastating loss - 19 innings and six unearned runs allowed. The ordeal certainly punished the Tigers' winning percentage, as it dropped them all the way to 16-2 on the year.

In other words, the '84 Tigers were such a juggernaut in April that you couldn't get a win against them unless (a) you played them for the length of two full games, and (b) they finally got tired or bored and just gave it to you.

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