OAKLAND, Calif. -- No story should begin with a surprise ending -- unless, of course, that unexpected twist comes at 2:45 a.m., a time when respectable folk are usually fast asleep and the night belongs only to restless souls, fallen angels, and bitter dreamers.
And so it was, in the first hour after the last bars closed in New England, that Red Sox fans were left with the sour aftertaste of defeat when Oakland catcher Ramon Hernandez dropped a two-out, bases-loaded bunt on Derek Lowe, the night's closer by default, to bring home the winning run in Oakland's 5-4 win in Game 1 of the American League Division Series.
Less than 14 hours later, the Sox were trailing again, 5-0, suggesting that the Nation was not alone in suffering a hangover effect from one of those losses that grow even more painful in the retelling, an obligatory task when so many questions hovered long after Lowe walked vacantly off the mound.
"That's the way this team works," catcher Jason Varitek would say in the stillness of the visitors' clubhouse afterward. "We do it the hard way first."
No need to relive every play. But here are the moments that helped to define this night, beginning with The Bunt.
Why Lowe was in the game? He hadn't pitched in seven days. He said the plan was for him to get an inning or two of work, as early as the sixth inning if Pedro Martinez got in trouble, as a tuneup for his Game 3 start tomorrow in Boston. But when the game went into the 11th inning and Sox manager Grady Little already had used five pitchers, Lowe got the call. What were you expecting, Scott Sauerbeck or Bronson Arroyo?
This was Lowe's first relief appearance since Sept. 9, 2001. He had made 68 straight starts since. He never relished the idea of closing again, a role that left him unhinged after he led the AL with 10 relief losses in 2001. No one, of course, imagined that he would throw 42 pitches in a high-intensity setting Wednesday night.
"This didn't help my cause," he said of expending so much energy in advance of his Game 3 start.
Neither did allowing Eric Chavez to steal third unchallenged with two out in the 12th, then walking Scott Hatteberg, who strolled down to second unchallenged by a throw on a first-pitch strike to Terrence Long. Hatteberg was not credited with a stolen base; it went into the books as defensive indifference, an apt description of the Sox usual approach to such situations.
"Chavez taking third base was a big play right there," Little would say the next morning. "He took that base way too easy."
Despite the 0-and-1 count on Long, Little ordered Lowe to walk Long intentionally. Lowe could be seen on the mound, registering his protest of the move, and later acknowledged it left him no margin for error.
"We were going with a lot of percentages right there," Little said. "That gave us the best chance to get out of the inning."
By walking Long, the Sox were eliminating a lefthanded batter with good speed who could beat out an infield hit against a sinkerballer. In his place, they were bringing up an All-Star in Hernandez. The Sox knew Hernandez, who has 25 career sacrifices, could lay down a bunt. Their scouting reports informed them of his knack to drop one down. A scout for another big league team said yesterday that on his reports, he has noted Hernandez's penchant for attempting to drag a bunt, usually to lead off an inning.
The Sox infield was playing deep on the corners. Ron Washington, the Oakland third-base coach, noted Sox third baseman Bill Mueller was playing behind the bag, and flashed the bunt sign to Hernandez. His bunt hit home plate and rolled toward third, giving Mueller no chance to make a play.
"Doing it with the bases loaded is a tremendous gamble," Little said. "He gambled and he won."
But there were so many plays, Little noted, that had a major bearing on the outcome. To wit:
Todd Walker's throwing error on a routine double-play relay in the seventh. If Walker, whose two home runs had made him the game's hitting star, turns two there, Martinez probably has enough to pitch the eighth. At the start of the seventh, he'd thrown only 97 pitches. If Walker turns two, there are two outs and nobody on. Instead, Martinez walks Mark Ellis and battles Erubiel Durazo in an epic 11-pitch duel before walking him, too. The inning doesn't end until Eric Chavez pops out with the bases loaded. By then, Martinez had thrown 130 pitches, a season high.
Manny Ramirez ended five innings, stranding five runners in successive at-bats, and placed David Ortiz, one of the team's big run-producers, in the position of leading off five innings. Ortiz, like Ramirez, goes 0 for 5.
In games in which the Sox led after eight innings, only twice all season had they blown the lead. This would be the third time. After Mike Timlin pitches a scoreless eighth, Little opens the ninth with Byung Hyun Kim. Shades of Cleveland: Kim walks pinch hitter Billy McMillon and hits Chris Singleton with a pitch. Little leaves Kim in to face Ellis, a righthanded batter, who whiffs, but with the lefthanded-hitting Durazo up next, he goes to his lefthander, Alan Embree, who gives up a game-tying single.
"We have a lot of confidence in BK," says Little, whose actions scream otherwise. "But sometimes my gut feeling is that the job isn't going to get closed out. We didn't like the matchup with Durazo."
When Kim was still with Arizona and throwing 93 miles an hour a couple of years ago, the scout said, he was still hittable for lefties. "Now he's throwing 88 to 90, and he's got nothing he can come inside with. All he's got is that Frisbee, which is the pitch he hit Singleton with.
"Embree? Yeah, he throws 97, but a lot of those pitches are awfully straight."
Two big substitutions by Little did not work in the Sox' favor. In the eighth, Little took the bat out of Trot Nixon's hands against lefty Ricardo Rincon and sent up David McCarty. Nixon was hitless in three trips, the rust evident from his three-week layoff. A's manager Ken Macha countered with Chad Bradford, who is death on righties, leading Little to send up late-season callup Adrian Brown to bat with runners on second and third. Brown whiffed, and after an intentional walk to Jason Varitek, Bradford induced Johnny Damon to bounce into a force play.
Then, in the bottom of the ninth, Little replaces Walker with Damian Jackson for defensive purposes. Jackson comes to the plate with two on and two outs in the 11th and whiffs.
Two big defensive plays by the A's. Second baseman Ellis saved a run when he kept Walker's infield hit from getting through in the third, saving a run, and third baseman Chavez snared Gabe Kapler's smash and easily beat Ramirez to the bag to end the top of the 12th.
"We didn't do our jobs," Nixon said. "Things didn't go our way, but we could have hammered this one down, and we didn't."
By Gordon Edes. Don Skwar and Jackie MacMullan of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
This story appeared in the Boston Globe on 10/3/2003.
Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.