Oakland belted three homers off Boston ace Pedro Martinez which spearheaded a 7-4 Game 4 victory and forces a fifth and deciding game back on the West Coast. Martinez was unable to channel the magic he spun in the Wild Card Game against Seattle as he blew an early 2-0 lead and did not make it out of the sixth inning. Oakland copied the Red Sox blueprint from their Game 3 victory. Boston launched three homers in that contest for a 7-5 win.
The Red Sox jumped on Oakland starter Ted Lilly with Nomar Garciaparra taking a hanging curveball over and out of Fenway in the first for a two-run homer. Johnny Damon scored on the dinger as he led off the game with a single. The optimism this 2-0 advantage offered was quickly snuffed out by a familiar nemesis.
In the third, Miguel Tejeda put the A's in front for good. A two-out uprising was initiated by Scott Hatteberg as he slapped a single to left. Eric Chavez followed with a single of his own to bring Tejeda to the plate. Martinez left a fastball over the middle, and Tejeda lost it putting the A's in front 3-2. This was the third long ball of the series for Tejeda as he has been an offensive dynamo driving in 9 runs in the series. Tejeda's first homer of the series came in extra innings in Game 2 tied the series 1-1.
Martinez would give up two more homers in the next three innings, and both were solo blasts of the leadoff variety. The first was authored by Jose Guillen in the fourth, and Ramon Hernandez struck in the sixth. Trot Nixon narrowed the score to 4-3 in the fifth with his first homer of the playoffs before Hernandez delivered his game-winner.
Martinez gave way to the bullpen after only 5.1 innings, but the A's would not be denied. Casey Fossum was the first out of the pen for Boston but was unable to record an out as Terrance Long and Eric Byrnes poked consecutive singles. Scott Williamson tried to minimize the damage facing the top of the Oakland order, but Mark Ellis drove a ball into the right-field alley for a two-run double.
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Ellis rounds first on his double
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Ted Lilly persevered and kept the A's in the game registering a quality start. He was one out away from getting through the seventh inning, but Boston mounted a threat. Bill Mueller whacked a single to center and Jason Varitek drew a walk. A's manager Ken Macha opted for Richardo Rincon to face Johnny Damon, and he got Damon to ground out to second baseman Mark Ellis to end the inning. In his only start in the actual 2003 series in Game 3, Lilly didn't figure in the decision going 7 innings without permitting an earned run. Oakland eventually lost the game 3-1 in 11 innings on a Trot Nixon 2 run homer.
The Oakland bullpen has had issues in these series but held fast with Rincon and Jim Mecir neutralizing the Red Sox offense. Boston's Bill Mueller was the only one to nick the Oakland bullpen as he hit an opposite-field homer off A's reliever John Halama to close the gap to 7-4 in the ninth. Keith Foulke, the lockdown closer that helped end the Red Sox 86 year-long World Series drought, came on to collect his first save of the series.
My virtual replay mimics reality as this series will also come down to a winner take all Game 5. It will feature a rematch of Game 1 starters with Boston's Tim Wakefield dueling Oakland's Mark Mulder. In their previous meeting, Wakefield was magnificent in a 3-1 Boston victory in the lowest-scoring game of the series. Since this initial meeting, both teams have been pounding the baseball with the A's outscoring the Red Sox 22-20 in the past three games.
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