1988 Boston Red Sox season

1988 Boston Red Sox
1988 AL East Champions
Major League affiliations
Location
Other information
Owner(s) Jean Yawkey,
Haywood Sullivan
General manager(s) Lou Gorman
Manager(s) John McNamara (W-43; L-42) and Joe Morgan (W-46; L-31)
Local television WSBK-TV, Ch. 38
(Sean McDonough, Bob Montgomery)
NESN
(Ned Martin, Jerry Remy)
Local radio WPLM-FM 99.1
WPLM-AM 1390
(Ken Coleman, Joe Castiglione)
WRCA
(Bobby Serrano, Hector Martinez)
 < Previous season     Next season  >

The 1988 Boston Red Sox season was a season in American baseball. It involved the Red Sox finishing first in the American League East with a record of 89 wins and 73 losses.

Offseason

Regular season

Season standings

AL East W L Pct. GB Home Road
Boston Red Sox 89 73 0.549 — 53–28 36–45
Detroit Tigers 88 74 0.543 1 50–31 38–43
Milwaukee Brewers 87 75 0.537 2 47–34 40–41
Toronto Blue Jays 87 75 0.537 2 45–36 42–39
New York Yankees 85 76 0.528 3½ 46–34 39–42
Cleveland Indians 78 84 0.481 11 44–37 34–47
Baltimore Orioles 54 107 0.335 34½ 34–46 20–61

Record vs. opponents

1988 American League Records

Sources:

Team BAL BOS CAL CWS CLE DET KC MIL MIN NYY OAK SEA TEX TOR
Baltimore — 4–9 5–7 4–7 4–9 5–8 0–12 4–9 3–9 3–10 4–8 7–5 6–6 5–8
Boston 9–4 — 8–4 7–5 8–5 6–7 6–6 10–3 7–5 9–4 3–9 6–6 8–4 2–11
California 7–5 4–8 — 9–4 8–4 5–7 5–8 3–9 4–9 6–6 4–9 6–7 8–5 6–6
Chicago 7–4 5–7 4–9 — 3–9 3–9 7–6 6–6 4–9 3–9 5–8 9–4 8–5 7–5
Cleveland 9–4 5–8 4–8 9–3 — 4–9 6–6 9–4 5–7 6–7 4–8 5–7 6–6 6–7
Detroit 8–5 7–6 7–5 9–3 9–4 — 8–4 5–8 1–11 8–5 4–8 9–3 8–4 5–8
Kansas City 12–0 6–6 8–5 6–7 6–6 4–8 — 3–9 7–6 6–6 8–5 7–5 7–6 4–8
Milwaukee 9–4 3–10 9–3 6–6 4–9 8–5 9–3 — 7–5 6–7 3–9 8–4 8–4 7–6
Minnesota 9–3 5–7 9–4 9–4 7–5 11–1 6–7 5–7 — 3–9 5–8 8–5 7–6 7–5
New York 10–3 4–9 6–6 9–3 7–6 5–8 6–6 7–6 9–3 — 6–6 5–7 5–6 6–7
Oakland 8–4 9–3 9–4 8–5 8–4 8–4 5–8 9–3 8–5 6–6 — 9–4 8–5 9–3
Seattle 5–7 6–6 7–6 4–9 7–5 3–9 5–7 4–8 5–8 7–5 4–9 — 6–7 5–7
Texas 6–6 4–8 5–8 5–8 6–6 4–8 6–7 4–8 6–7 6–5 5–8 7–6 — 6–6
Toronto 8–5 11–2 6–6 5–7 7–6 8–5 8–4 6–7 5–7 7–6 3–9 7–5 6–6 —

Notable Transactions

Opening Day Line Up

  5 Brady Anderson CF
17 Marty Barrett 2B
26 Wade Boggs     3B
14 Jim Rice LF
39 Mike Greenwell     RF
24 Dwight Evans 1B
30 Sam Horn DH
10 Rich Gedman C
  7 Spike Owen SS
21 Roger Clemens P

The Rough Beginning

The 1988 team seemed to start much better than their chaotic 1987 season as evidenced by their 14-6 record in April; however, the team went sour thereafter specially for Jim Rice as he moved from left field to designated hitter. Dwight Evans also had problems when he played first base; usually reliable Lee Smith had problems including when he gave up a game-winning home run against the Tigers on Opening Day. The Red Sox would have an 11-16 record in May.

The team would have a slightly better June with a 14-12 record, but lost Jeff Sellers when he was hit by a line drive in Cleveland and broke his hand. Wes Gardner was moved from the bullpen to become a starter, but the team and its fans were losing patience.

Morgan Magic

At the All-Star break the Red Sox were 43-42, 9 games behind the front running Detroit Tigers. But management had seen enough, and fired John McNamara and hired 58-year-old Joe Morgan as their manager. On July 15, the Red Sox and Roger Clemens beat Bret Saberhagen's Kansas City Royals 3-1 to begin a 12-game winning streak and launched them to first place over the slumping Yankees and Tigers. The Red Sox would later set an American League record of 24 straight home victories. 60 days after Morgan became Red Sox manager they were 81-63 and 4.5 games ahead of first.

Staggering But Still Won The East

After a bad road trip to Toronto, the Sox came to Yankee Stadium up by 4, and won 2 out of 3 to just about clinch the A.L. East flag. Unfortunately, the hitting slump the team had been in for a while reasserted itself, and the Sox lost 3 to Toronto in Boston, but they crushed the Indians on September 29 to clinch a tie for first. The Yanks and Milwaukee lost the next day, and the division title was Boston's. Their 2nd A.L. East title in 3 seasons.

Roster

1988 Boston Red Sox
Roster
Pitchers Catchers

Infielders

 Outfielders

Other batters

Manager

Coaches

Player stats

Batting

Starters by position

Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At Bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting Average; HR = Home Runs; RBI = Runs Batted In

Pos Player G AB H Avg. HR RBI
C Rich Gedman 95 299 69 .231 9 39
1B Todd Benzinger 120 405 103 .254 13 70
2B Marty Barrett 150 612 173 .283 1 65
3B Wade Boggs 155 584 214 .366 5 58
SS Jody Reed 109 338 99 .293 1 28
LF Mike Greenwell 158 590 192 .325 22 119
CF Ellis Burks 144 540 159 .294 18 92
RF Dwight Evans 149 559 164 .293 21 111
DH Jim Rice 135 485 128 .264 15 72

Other batters

Player G AB H Avg. HR RBI

Pitching

Starting pitchers

Player G IP W L ERA SO
Roger Clemens 35 264 18 12 2.93 291

Other pitchers

Player G IP W L ERA SO

Relief pitchers

Player G W L SV ERA SO

ALCS

Game 1

Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Oakland 000 100 100 260
Boston 000 000 100 160
W: Rick Honeycutt (1-0)   L: Bruce Hurst (0-1)  S: Dennis Eckersley (1)
HR: OAK – José Canseco (1)

Game 2

Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Oakland 000 000 301 4101
Boston 000 002 100 341
W: Gene Nelson (1-0)   L: Lee Smith (0-1)  S: Dennis Eckersley (2)
HR: OAK – José Canseco (2)   BOS – Rich Gedman (1)

Game 3

Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Boston 320 000 100 6120
Oakland 042 010 12X 10151
W: Gene Nelson (2-0)   L: Mike Boddicker (0-1)  S: Dennis Eckersley (3)
HR: OAK – Mark McGwire (1)  Carney Lansford (1)  Ron Hassey (1)  Dave Henderson (1)  BOS – Mike Greenwell (1)

Game 4

Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Boston 000 001 000 140
Oakland 101 000 02X 4101
W: Dave Stewart (1-0)   L: Bruce Hurst (0-2)  S: Dennis Eckersley (4)
HR: OAK – José Canseco (3)

Awards and honors

All-Star Game

Farm system

Level Team League Manager
AAA Pawtucket Red Sox International League Ed Nottle
AA New Britain Red Sox Eastern League Dave Holt
A Lynchburg Red Sox Carolina League Dick Berardino
A Winter Haven Red Sox Florida State League Doug Camilli
A-Short Season Elmira Pioneers New York–Penn League Bill Limoncelli
Rookie AZL Mariners/Red Sox Arizona League Mike Verdi and Myron Pines

AZL club affiliation shared with Seattle Mariners

References

  1. ↑ Lee Smith Statistics - Baseball-Reference.com
  2. ↑ Dennis Lamp Statistics and History - Baseball-Reference.com
  3. ↑ Rick Cerone Statistics - Baseball-Reference.com
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/9/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.