The Sox' magical ride continued into early August, boring in on the league leaders. The winning streak ended on July 26 with a 9-8 losss in Texas marked by another injury to the erratic Oil Can Boyd. The team stayed tough, rallying from 2-0 and 6-2 deficits. Tom Bolton surrendered a two-run homer in the seventh for the winnng tallies, but it took a great catch by the Rangers' Cecil Espy to clinch it in the ninth.
The loss was but a blip on the Bosox' winning radar. They downed Texas the next night by a 10-7 count, coming back with 3 in the eighth and 2 in the ninth. Resurgent Ellis Burks contributed a grand slam. Jim Rice, who was 6-for-9 after returning from his suspension, had three hits and drove in the tying run. For the time being, the "Release Rice" chorus of writers calmed down. As usual, Jim Ed himself had little comment.
The morning of July 30 had two headlines. One was a sweep of Milwaukee (6-4, 5-4), which ran their streak to 15 of 16, the other an important trade with the Orioles. Looking for pitching help, Boston sent outfielder Brady Anderson and a double-A hurler named Curt Schilling to the Orioles for starter Mike Boddicker. Despite a 6-12 record with the woeful O's, his ERA was 3.86 and he had pitched into the seventh in each of his last ten starts. Most of the newspaper talk centered around bolstering the Sox' shaky rotation (Boyd had just gone on the DL) and the trading of a young prospect like Anderson to the rebuilding Orioles.
As for the games, the Townies relied on newfound heroes Jody Reed, Mike Greenwell, and Todd Benzinger at the plate and Lee Smith (save 17) and Dennis Lamp in the bullpen. Even Bob Stanley got into the act, shutting the Brewers down in the ninth of game 2.
A 3-2 win by Roger Clemens with 13 K's, Boddicker pitched in immediately, going 7 2/3 innings of shutout ball in a 5-0 win over the Brewers that brought the streak to 17 of 18. "(He) comes from the final days of the golden age of baseball," wrote Dan Shaughnessy…"He was an Oriole when they expected to beat teams with sound fundamentals and a common sense of purpose."
The Boddicker trade has been described as one of the most one-sided in baseball history, but that is an oversimplification. It is true that in the early 90's, Anderson would seem to develop overnight into both a power hitter and base stealer, once hitting 50 homers and becoming a three-time all-star. He never appeared on steroid lists, but many writers believe he belongs there. Schilling, who was barely mentioned on trade day, would blossom into a star in Philadelphia and into a World Series hero in Arizona and back at Fenway. But these things happened long after 1988. Boddicker would go 39-22 in 2 1/2 years in Boston. It is unlikely that the Sox would have won AL East titles in 88 and 90 without him. Due to these rather strange circumstances, the overall value of the trade is difficult to measure.
On July 31, the Sox stood 1 1/2 games behind first-place Detroit and 1/2 game behind the second place Yankees. A look at the league leaders in different categories shows how far the team had come since the dark McNamara days. Wade Boggs, having apparently put the Adams affair behind him, was second in batting at .358, first in OBP, and second in runs, hits and walks. Greenwell, Burks and even Dewey Evans appeared high on lists in a number of offensive areas. Clemens was still burning up the pitching stats, standing at one or two in ERA, won-lost percentage, innings, strikeouts, complete games and shutouts.
This was what the fans had expected in May and June and failed to get. Joe Morgan truly seemed a miracle man.
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