AL Roundup - Opening Day

[bernieh]

[i:c725fbaaaf]by Bill Janssen[/i:c725fbaaaf]

The start of the 1986: Take Two baseball season brought exciting opening day match ups to fans in three American League cities - Detroit, Baltimore, and Chicago. And if the first day is any indication of what is to come, then fans should get priorty orders out for season tickets, because all three home teams won their openers last night.

The Detroit Tigers, behind veteran ace Jack Morris came from behind to defeat the Boston Red Sox 3-2. The Baltimore Orioles got 11 hits off Cleveland’s Tom Candiotti, defeating the Indians by 2 runs. And the Chicago White Sox find themselves, for at least one day, all alone on top of the AL West division after a 3-1 win over the visiting Milwaukee Brewers.

Here’s a recap of the opening American League games:

[url=http://www.sportingnews.com/baseball/1986/scores/boxscore.php?id=4][size=16:c725fbaaaf][b:c725fbaaaf][u:c725fbaaaf]Detroit Tigers 3, Boston Red Sox 2[/u:c725fbaaaf][/b:c725fbaaaf][/size:c725fbaaaf][/url]

<img src="http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/images/baseball/stratomatic/1986/story_photos/jack_morris_1_150x194.jpg" align="left" width="150" height="194" style="margin-right: 10px;" /> Detroit’s Jack Morris pitched 8 strong innings, allowing just four hits, and reliever Willie Hernandez pitched a scoreless ninth to lead the Tigers to a 3-2 victory over the visiting Boston Red Sox at Tigers Stadium.

Boston struck first, jumping to a 2-0 lead on Jim Rice’s two out HR in the third inning. The Tigers offense responded the next inning, as Lance Parrish followed Kirk Gibson’s leadoff single with a game-tying home run. While Jack Morris and Willie Hernandez held Boston's potent lineup in check with just two hits the rest of the way, Detroit’s Johnny Grubb provided the game winning RBI- a solo 7th inning HR off of the young Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens.

Boston’s DH Don Baylor greeted Tigers reliever Willie Hernandez with a leadoff single in the 9th inning. Knowing he had no better speed on the bench, Red Sox manager Curt Schilling elected to leave the slugging Baylor on the base paths despite the one run game. Willie Hernandez got the next batter (Dwight Evans) to ground into a double play, effectively ending the rally as fast as it had begun and bringing a collective sigh of relief to new Tigers manager Sean Forman and the 48,000 fans in Tigers Stadium.

Boston’s Roger Clemens managed to keep last year’s American League homerun champion, Detroit’s Darrell Evans, well in check but surrendered home runs to Grubb and catcher Lance Parrish. Clemens spoke of the home runs after the game: “I felt I had great control, I just threw the right pitches to one guy (Evans), and threw two wrong pitches to the other guys (Parrish, Grubb).” Clemens finished with 7 strikeouts and allowed no walks.

Game Notes: Dwight Evans grounded into two DP’s in the game; Don Baylor and Jim Rice each had two hits for Boston. Tigers Stadium hosted it's 75th home opener- it opened the same day as Boston's Fenway park back in 1912 (it had been named after Tigers owners- Navin Field and Briggs Stadium, until being renamed in 1961); last season, only California and Toronto had a higher attendance than Detroit, who had almost 2.3M fans turn the stiles at Tiger Stadium in 1985; Boston led the AL in league in hitting in 1985 with .282 average, but only managed five hits in the game today; last year’s AL batting champ Wade Boggs opened the game with a hit, then went hitless.

[url=http://www.sportingnews.com/baseball/1986/scores/boxscore.php?id=3][size=16:c725fbaaaf][b:c725fbaaaf][u:c725fbaaaf]Baltimore Orioles 3, Cleveland Indians 1[/u:c725fbaaaf][/b:c725fbaaaf][/size:c725fbaaaf][/url]

The Cleveland Indians, coming off a tough 102 loss campaign in 1985, started off the new season in a familiar way - losing a close game on the road - as the Baltimore Orioles, behind a strong outing from Mike Flanagan, defeated the Indians by a score of 3-1 at Memorial Stadium.

The Orioles jumped ahead 2-0 in the early innings, as they scored in the second inning on a single following a Tom Candiotti wild pitch, and in the fourth inning on a single which followed a Rick Dempsey sacrifice bunt. Cleveland loaded the bases in the fifth, but could only manage a sacrifice fly and one run before the stingy Flanagan escaped from the Cleveland threat. Flanagan and Orioles reliever Don Aase would not let the Indians rally again, while Rick Dempsey provided the Orioles with an important 8th inning insurance run. Aase closed out the game with four strikeouts over two scoreless innings for his first save of the season.

Cleveland had the highest ERA in the AL in 1985, and Tom Candiotti demonstrated why the Indians might continue to struggle on the mound. Despite not surrendering a home run to the Orioles (who led the AL in HR’s last year), Candiotti offered up 11 hits and 6 walks, as his knuckle ball seemed to confuse his own catcher (Chris Bando) more than it did the Orioles hitters. Cleveland manager Paul Cousineau said after the game, “If we don’t improve our pitching, and rather quickly, we are destined to lose 100 games again this year.” Cousineau replaced Pat Corralles as the Indians skipper this past off season.

Game Notes: Baltimore left 11 runners on base; the teams combined to turn 5 DP’s in the game; Eddie Murray was the only Orioles starter without a hit; Attendance at Memorial Stadium was 40,576, another Baltimore home opener that fell short of a sellout; Cleveland mercifully opened the season on the road, after drawing a league low of 655,181 fans last season.

[url=http://www.sportingnews.com/baseball/1986/scores/boxscore.php?id=5][size=16:c725fbaaaf][b:c725fbaaaf][u:c725fbaaaf]Chicago White Sox 3, Milwaukee Brewers 1[/u:c725fbaaaf][/b:c725fbaaaf][/size:c725fbaaaf][/url]

At Comiskey Park, venerable Carlton Fisk launched a home run, first baseman Greg Walker scored twice, and starting pitcher Floyd Bannister surrendered just two hits over 7 tough innings to lead the Chicago White Sox to 3 to 1 opening day victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.

Milwaukee had their first run of the season after just two batters, as Billy Joe Robidoux drove in Robin Yount with a first inning double. However, Chicago responded with single runs off left hander Teddy Higuera in the 2nd, 4th, and 5th innings, taking the lead for good while shutting down the Brewers offense entirely after the initial early run.

Milwaukee rallied in the 9th, getting two runners on, but reliever Bobby Thigpen struck out Rob Deer and then got Paul Molitor out on a hard hit groundball, a 3b(x) play, that was masterfully handled by White Sox third baseman Tim Hulett.

Game Notes: Higuera had 9 K’s in 7 innings; Bannister had 8 K’s in 7 innings; Carlton Fisk and Jerry Hairston each struck out 3 times; Brewer Rob Deer had a rough time of it in the field, getting charged with an error after letting a single bounce off his glove into the corner- the runner scored all the way from first base on the play; Comiskey Park opened back in 1910- talks continue about a potential new ballpark for the White Sox; the Sox press office still has not provided the real name of their new manager, who so far has only gone by the nickname of “The Cheat”; Chicago’s Ozzie Guillen, last year’s Rookie of the Year, is reportedly interested in managing someday; the White Sox pitching staff led the AL in 1985 with over 1000 strikeouts; last season, among AL ballclubs, the Brewers had the distinction of hitting the fewest HR’s (101), while their pitchers surrendered the most HR’s (175) in the league; Carlton Fisk finished 2nd in the American League with 37 HR’s last season.

[b:c725fbaaaf]Tuesday Night AL Games:[/b:c725fbaaaf]

All six teams that played Monday night will get a day off on Tuesday, while the rest of the American League opens their season. The four games today… the day gets started with Kansas City at New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays at Texas Rangers, followed by two west coast games with Minnesota Twins visiting the Oakland A’s and the Seattle Mariners taking on the visiting California Angels.

[johnlaw1564]

Excellent recap, Bill. You and Adam are doing a great job with all the articles. Keep up the good work! J Law

[ths92110]

Good to see Fat Jack back on the mound but I'm a little concerned about Lance Parrish and his .254 BA in the #3 spot. Why not Whitaker, Trammell , Gibson, Grubb, Parrish, Evans, Coles, Lemon, and Collins vs RHs?? The negative clutch on Parrish's card is minimal, Trammel has the + single on a 7, and Gibson, for all of his strikeouts and crummy fielding, was the heart and soul of this team. (God I miss that guy!! : )

(PS, if I could have found a place to send this directly to the manager I would have . . . . . )

[Hakmusic]

in '86, Dwight Evans led off the opening day game, batting first in the order, with a Home Run. It was a magical moment. I remember thinking "this season is going to be different."

They ended up losing the game, but it didn't matter. It was still a harbinger of what was to come.

Even if batting Evans first and Boggs second against Morris makes little sense, I would have loved to have seen it for game 1 of this season. Because if Evans had hit a HR in that first at bat, then this sim would have taken on a whole different dimension.