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MARC TOPKINRED SOX 3, A'S 1 (11): Trot Nixon's two-run homer keeps Boston's hope alive.
BOSTON - So much about the Red Sox has to do with history, with their endearing efforts to erase their futile past. While they still have a tough task, their wild 3-1 victory Saturday has to have the A's pondering their own recent failures - and wondering how they could have made so many boneheaded mistakes.
As if four errors weren't enough, they made two you'd-have-to-see-them-to-believe-them baserunning mistakes in the sixth inning, with Eric Byrnes failing to touch home plate and, more incredulously, Miguel Tejada stopping between third and home thinking, wrongly, that he would be awarded home because of an obstruction call.
The Sox convinced themselves that getting home would allow them to get the momentum back in the series, and they did it when pinch-hitter Trot Nixon hit a two-run homer off Rich Harden with one out in the 11th, electrifying the Fenway Park crowd of 35,460, largest since 1990..
"I think I'd have to say it turned 100 percent out there tonight," Boston manager Grady Little said. "I'm very pleased with the way the guys kept battling, and we were finally able to get it done in the last inning. It was great."
The loss forces the A's to a Game 4 today against a rejuvenated Boston squad, with the specter of facing Pedro Martinez in Game 5 on Monday.
It was the seventh time in the last four postseasons that the A's have failed to close out a series, leading to three straight first-round eliminations.
"I hope some of our guys learned a little bit of a lesson on a couple of those plays," Oakland manager Ken Macha said. "It's unfortunate they happened in a game like this. ... We've got to bounce back (today)."
The A's made four errors in the first four innings, including a comical sequence in the second when they made three on consecutive plays, allowing the Red Sox to score a run without hitting the ball out of the infield.
Tejada botched a ball and Gold Glove third baseman Eric Chavez bounced a throw, but the worst was when Chavez had Jason Varitek in a rundown and turned it into a run-in. Chavez was charged with obstruction (and a third error), and Varitek was sent home.
"I think we gave them seven outs in that inning," Macha said. "It's amazing they only got one run."
The baserunning blunders were worse.
Byrnes could have scored the tying run when he dashed home on Tejada's squibber, but he tripped over Varitek's leg, landed on the other side of the plate and never touched it, with umpire Paul Emmel making no call.
Byrnes limped toward the dugout, taking the time to shove Varitek but not thinking to touch the plate and was tagged out.
"I thought the umpire had already made the call," Byrnes said. "I wasn't thinking about anything but my knee."
The tying run scored when Ramon Hernandez's bouncer skidded past shortstop Nomar Garciaparra for an error, and Tejada also was headed home, but just before he got to third he made slight contact with third baseman Bill Mueller. Umpire Bill Welke immediately pointed out the obstruction, and Tejada, who was looking back for the call, stopped about halfway home and extended his arms in a safe sign. But Varitek tagged Tejada, and Emmel called him out, setting off a storm of protest from the A's dugout.
Tejada was right, there was obstruction. But the umpires' call was that the obstruction occurred on his way to third and, citing MLB rule 7.06 (b), Tejada was on his own when he went home.
Welke explained that since there was no play being made on Tejada, he was not supposed to call time. It is his judgment to determine if the obstruction caused the runner to be out, but since Tejada stopped there was no decision to be made.
"He advances at his own peril, we see what the results are and I can step in and protect him," Welke said.
Tejada declined comment.
For A's fans still remembering Jeremy Giambi's Game 3 failure to slide as the play that turned the 2001 division series in the Yankees' favor, it was not comforting.