ALCS Game Five, 2018

Red Sox at Astros, 5:09 PM PDT, TV: TBS

Backs to the wall, the Astros send ace RHP Justin Verlander to the mound to stop the Red Sox. The Sox counter with LHP David Price. Verlander gave up two runs on two hits in six innings in Game One of this series, while Price went 4 2/3 innings in Game Two, giving up five hits and four runs. The Sox scored five in the first three innings and were never caught, so for the first time in Price’s career his team won a postseason game he’d started.

Today in Red Sox history:

  • 1971 Dick Williams is named the Associated Press American League Manager of the Year after guiding the A’s to their first playoff appearance since the franchise faced St. Louis in the 1931 Fall Classic. The 42 year-old skipper also copped the honor for piloting the Red Sox during the team’s Impossible Dream season in 1967.
  • 1999 The Yankees win their record 36th pennant when the team beats the Red Sox, 6-1, in Game 5 of the ALCS. Orlando Hernandez blanks Boston into the eighth inning with Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada providing the offense punch with two-run round-trippers, respectively in the first and ninth frames of the Fenway Park contest.
  • 2004 After 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 471 pitches, the Red Sox outlast the Yankees, 5-4, in Game 5 of the league championship. Boston’s DH David Ortiz, who is the first player in baseball history to hit two walk-off home runs during the postseason, ends the longest game in ALCS history at 1:22 a.m. with a two-out single into center scoring Johnny Damon from second in the 14th inning at Fenway Park.
  • 2008 The Red Sox, scoring in each of the last three innings, erase a seven-run deficit in the seventh to beat the Rays, 8-7, in Game 5 of the ALCS. The Philadelphia A’s, who rallied after trailing 8-0 to beat the Cubs, 10-8, in Game 4 of the 1929 World Series, are the only team to have made a bigger comeback in the postseason.

Today in Astros’ history:

  • 2001 Larry Dierker, who left the Astros’ broadcast booth to take over the dugout duties as the team’s skipper in 1997, resigns as Houston manager (448-362, .553, four divisional titles), despite tying the Cardinals for the best record in the National League (93-69) and winning the Central Division. The team failed to win a playoff series in his five-year tenure, going 2-12 in postseason action.
  • 2017 Masahiro Tanaka pitches seven innings of three-hit ball and the Yankees shut out the Astros in Game Five of the ALCS to take a 3-2 lead in the series. The Astros won the next two games and moved on to the 2018 World Series for the second time in team history (2005).

Lineups when available.

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