Francona: The Red Sox Years (50 page)

In a nationally televised game that lasted 14 innings, covering five hours and 11 minutes, the Red Sox beat the Yankees, 7–4. Lackey gave up three runs in the first inning, then settled down and blanked the Bombers through the sixth. Five more Sox pitchers went to the mound, and Francona used 14 position players to keep the desperate Sox alive. The doubleheader split gave Boston a one-game lead over the Rays with three to play.

Standing in front of his locker after the game, Lackey started things by saying, “Thirty minutes before the game I got a text message on my cell phone from one of you, someone in the media, talking about personal stuff. . . . It’s unbelievable I’ve got to deal with this.”

A short flight and a few hours later, Francona walked into the visiting manager’s office at Camden Yards and discovered Ganley sitting alone on the couch. She was distressed about the way things had gone down with Lackey the night before in New York. She was also powerless to control TMZ.

It pained Francona to see Ganley upset. Dealing with an epic collapse, no contract for 2012, bus schedules, reports of a “disconnect” with his GM, sulking veterans, and pitchers out of shape and out of control, the manager donned his big brother cap and consoled the loyal public relations employee. It was not the first time he’d come to the rescue of Pam Ganley. In her first year on the job, she’d taken some shots from pitching coach Farrell regarding official scorers’ decisions, and Francona had urged that Farrell apologize. Now he had to gently extinguish a brushfire between his struggling $82 million pitcher and a dedicated publicist who logged 100-hour workweeks for less than John Lackey paid in clubhouse tips.

“It’s okay, Pam,” said the manager. “We all know you are doing the right thing.”

A few hours later, the Orioles beat the Red Sox, 6–3, and the Sox fell into a tie with the Rays for the wild-card spot. Boston’s nine-game lead over Tampa was completely gone. The Yankees weren’t trying very hard to beat Tampa, but nobody begrudged New York’s opportunity to rest. Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez sat out every inning of Boston’s 14-inning victory over New York Sunday night.

In his final start of 2011, Beckett coughed up a 2–1 lead, giving up all six runs in six innings. Batting in the second spot for the fourth consecutive game, Crawford went 0–5 again, which made him 3–21 since Pedroia petitioned the manager to elevate the sensitive outfielder.

“Fuck, Pedey, I can’t do this anymore,” Francona told Pedroia. The manager moved Crawford to the eight spot in the batting order for the final two games of the season.

The Red Sox and Rays both won their next-to-last game Tuesday night. With Lowrie batting in the cleanup spot for the first time in his career, Sox rookie catcher Ryan Lavarnway hit a pair of homers and Papelbon survived a 28-pitch ninth to give the Sox an 8–7 win.

The last night of the 2011 Major League Baseball season was one of the most exciting nights in the history of the game. The Red Sox, Rays, St. Louis Cardinals, and Atlanta Braves were all playing with the playoffs on the line. Four other teams, the Tigers, Angels, Brewers, and Phillies, played with home-field advantage at stake.

At 10:30
AM
on Wednesday, September 28, Francona came down the elevator from his room in the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel. He placed his bag behind the velvet ropes in a space set aside for the Red Sox traveling party. He did not have to check out of the hotel or even stop by the desk to pay incidental charges. Trusty Jack McCormick took care of paying the manager’s incidentals. It was a managerial perk.

McCormick had a lot of other duties on the final day of the regular season. The Sox were going somewhere after the game. There were four possibilities. They could be going to Detroit or Dallas–Fort Worth for the first game of the American League Division Series. They could be going to Tampa–St. Petersburg for a one-game playoff against the Rays. Or, worst case, they could be going back to Boston for a long, awful winter. McCormick had a Delta 757 jet (Air Red Sox flight number 8884) set to transport the team from Baltimore-Washington Airport to one of those four destinations after midnight.

“No problem,” said McCormick. “They have maps to every city.”

Francona walked to the ballpark for the final game. The walk would have been intolerable in midsummer, when hundreds of Red Sox fans patrolled the half-mile of streets between the Renaissance and Camden Yards. It was not a problem in September. The manager made his lonely walk and enjoyed every step.

“We were fighting for our baseball lives, and I was excited that morning,” said Francona. “For me it felt like we were getting ready to play a Game 7, and that was exciting. We had all those destinations, which was somewhat hilarious, and I still thought we were gonna win. We had Lester on the mound, and he was 14–0 lifetime against Baltimore.”

The manager arrived at Camden Yards before 11:00
AM
.

There was much to do. Lester was getting the ball on three days’ rest for the regular-season finale, but Francona had to think about the possibility of a one-game playoff game the next day in Tampa. There was no logical starting pitcher for the Red Sox. Beleaguered Lackey (weeks away from surgery) was a candidate on three days’ rest. Beckett, whose wife was scheduled to deliver a baby any minute, said he’d start on two days’ rest. Wakefield, as ever, could pitch anytime. Rookie lefty Felix Doubront, 0–0 in 11 relief appearances, was available. Buchholz, who hadn’t pitched since June, was another possibility. Henry was petitioning his manager to pitch Buchholz. Meanwhile, in a bizarre twist, urged on by Henry’s nervousness, Epstein explored acquiring Kansas City lefty Bruce Chen for a one-game stint with the Red Sox.

Francona hated the idea of bringing in Chen for such an important game.

“I’m really uncomfortable with this,” Francona told his GM. “I want us to do this with our team. These guys are busting their asses. He’s not even part of what we are doing.”

“I’ve got a responsibility,” countered Epstein.

Epstein was unable to acquire Chen.

The GM had a few things to say about the final lineup. He wanted rookie catcher Ryan Lavarnway, a September call-up, back in the lineup, batting fifth, behind Gonzalez. Francona agreed.

“We were always pushing Tito to play Lavarnway,” admitted Epstein. “But where he was in the lineup was Tito’s call. That was something Tito wanted to do.”

Lester said he was comfortable throwing to a rookie who had less than a month of experience behind the plate.

The finale unfolded in ghastly fashion. Pedroia’s solo homer in the fifth gave the Sox a 3–2 lead, which was where things stood when Baltimore rains interrupted the game at 9:33
PM
in the middle of the seventh. When the Sox got to their clubhouse, they tuned in to the game in Tampa. Folks watching the Sox NESN broadcast back in Boston were bombarded with virtual ads urging them to watch Liverpool versus Wolverhampton the next day at 4:00
PM
, which would have been the same time the Red Sox might play Tampa on TBS. The Yankee broadcast showed the Bronx Bombers leading the Rays, 7–0. It looked like the Sox were going to either Detroit or Texas for the ALDS.

The Sox had been in their clubhouse for more than a half-hour when the Rays came to bat, still trailing 7–0, in the bottom of the eighth. No Yankee team had blown a lead of 7–0 or greater in the eighth inning or later since 1953, but Yankee manager Joe Girardi was not playing to win. Jeter, Teixeira, Curtis Granderson, and Nick Swisher had all been pulled from the game. Tampa scored six times in the eighth, pulling to within a run on Evan Longoria’s three-run homer.

Epstein and Cherington watched with Francona in the manager’s office at Camden Yards.

“The Yankees had that lead, then started treating it like a spring training game, as we would have,” said Epstein. “There was a sense of dread as we saw them chipping away. It was like watching a car wreck in slow motion.”

“We started that night worrying about ourselves,” said Hale. “But when all that stuff started happening in Tampa, I thought we stopped thinking about ourselves and thinking about them.”

The Sox were getting ready to go back on the field when Longoria rounded the bases to make it 7–6.

“Fuck!” barked Epstein.

“Fuck!” barked Cherington.

“Don’t worry,” said Francona. “It ain’t happening.”

The Sox were scheduled to resume playing at 10:58. Epstein and Cherington stayed behind in Francona’s office when the Sox went back down the runway toward their third-base dugout. At 10:47, Tampa pinch hitter Dan Johnson tied the Rays-Yankees game with a two-out home run off the right-field foul pole off Cory Wade. Johnson was batting .108 and hadn’t gotten a big league hit since April.

At least we’re still winning our game,
Francona thought to himself.
There are worse things than having to play tomorrow.

After the one-hour-and-26-minute delay, the Sox and Orioles went back to work in the bottom of the seventh.

The Sox blew a chance to pad their lead when Scutaro hesitated on the base path and was thrown out at home plate in the eighth. Boston failed to score in the ninth despite having runners on first and third with no outs and the heart of the order due up. Oriole manager Buck Showalter, a known Red Sox antagonist, managed as if it were the seventh game of the World Series and got his team out of a jam by intentionally walking Gonzalez, setting up an inning-ending double-play grounder by Lavarnway.

Papelbon came on for the ninth. The 2011 Sox at that moment were 77–0 in games in which they led after eight innings, and Papelbon had blown only two saves all season. There was cellophane covering the lockers in the Red Sox clubhouse, but Francona was anxious because his ninth-inning man had thrown 28 pitches the night before.

Beyond the pitching mound, directly in his line of vision, Francona could see play-by-play updates of the critical game unfolding in Tampa. The manager knew what everybody knew: a Yankee win or a Red Sox win would vault the Sox back to the playoffs for the sixth time in eight years. The worst case still seemed to be a one-game playoff in Tampa the next day.

Then everything came apart. With two outs and nobody aboard, Papelbon surrendered back-to-back doubles to Chris Davis and Nolan Reimold to make it a 3–3 game. Sox-killer Robert Andino was next and hit a sinking liner to left. It was a classic ’tweener. Crawford hesitated, lumbered forward, but could not make the catch. When Reimold slid across home plate with the Orioles’ winning run, the Red Sox ran off the field knowing they could not make the playoffs without playing one more game the next day in Tampa. Disgusted by the Oriole dogpile at home plate, Scutaro flung his glove into the third-base dugout.

While Hale dutifully peeled the lineup card off the wall and gathered scouting reports, Francona left the dugout and headed for the clubhouse. The manager never wanted to linger for the cameras.

He made his way down the tunnel, through the clubhouse, and into his office, where Epstein and Cherington were sitting on the couch. The office television was turned off. It’s baseball etiquette. After a loss, the TV goes dark. The manager stood at his sink and started brushing the Lancaster out of his gums. Sitting on the couch, tracking the Rays game on his iPad, Cherington saw Longoria’s home run down the left-field line.

“Longoria just won it with a walk-off,” said Cherington.

“Fuck,” said . . . everyone.

There it was. The Sox were not going to Detroit or Texas for the American League Division Series. They were not going to Tampa for a one-game playoff, which would have been their first one-game playoff since the infamous Bucky Dent game of 1978. They were going home. Their season was over. They were the first team in baseball history to fail to make the playoffs after holding a nine-game playoff lead in September.

“I feel like I let you down,” Francona told Epstein.

“This was all of us, and you did the best you could,” said Epstein.

Ganley made it into the room and told Francona he would need to do his postgame press conference in the hallway outside the Sox clubhouse. Showalter was using the Camden interview room (“For those two Baltimore reporters,” Ganley sniffed), so Francona had no option but to go outside the clubhouse and into the corridor for his session with the Boston media. With his back supported by the cold cinder-block wall, Francona answered every question, referencing “the mess we got ourselves into.” It felt like a firing squad. And it was.

Less than an hour later, there were three buses waiting for the Red Sox entourage outside Camden Yards. The traveling party was larger than usual because everybody thought they were going to the playoffs and there were a lot of front-office folk and family members in the group.

Francona came out of the ballpark, saw the three buses, strolled toward the door of the first coach, and walked up the steps, only to find somebody sitting in his seat—driver side, second row by the window. He said nothing and went to find another seat.

It doesn’t matter,
he thought to himself.
It’s not going to be my seat anymore.

CHAPTER 15

T
HERE WAS NOTHING FUN
or collegial about the bus ride and the last flight home from Baltimore. No Texas Hold ’Em, no “Mississippi River Rule,” no back-slapping or chop-busting.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona didn’t get to his room 421 of the Brookline Courtyard Marriott until 4:00
AM
on the morning of Thursday, September 29, 2011. He was scheduled to meet with Theo Epstein later at Fenway for the perfunctory “postmortem” press conference in the second-floor media room, and it was not going to be pleasant. He knew his future was in doubt. The Sox were holding a two-year option for his services—at $4.5 million per season. The option had to be triggered within ten days, and the manager was not in a favorable position with Henry, Werner, and Lucchino.

He was back at Fenway late in the morning. While Sox ballplayers came and went, packing boxes for a winter that was coming earlier than they expected, Francona closed the door to his office, sat down, and looked up at Epstein.