August 15, 1977 – Yankees 6, White Sox 2
- Sal Maiorana
- Aug 15, 2017
- 2 min read
NEW YORK – The same Billy Martin who had cautioned his team to “not look over their shoulder” at the scoreboard to see how the Red Sox were doing spent a few minutes after his team’s victory essentially doing that very same thing.
Mike Torrez twirled his fifth straight complete game in shutting down the White Sox, holding them to a pair of solo homers by Eric Soderholm and Oscar Gamble, to give the Yankees their seventh win in eight games.
When the game, which took barely two hours to complete, was finished, Martin went into his office and turned on his television to watch the end of the Red Sox game against Kansas City as the beat writers joined him. He watched as the Royals cut their deficit to 2-1 in the top of the ninth when Al Cowens drew a two-out, bases-loaded walk against Bill Campbell. That brought up George Brett, one of the most dangerous hitters in baseball, but he grounded to second to end the game, Boston’s 15th win in its last 16 games, as Martin seethed.
“How can (Don) Zimmer stay that fat with close games like this?” Martin asked before storming off to the showers. Can you imagine current Yankee manager Joe Girardi saying that about Red Sox skipper John Farrell?
In support of Torrez, the Yankees grabbed a quick 2-0 lead by scoring single runs on outs in each of the first two innings, then blew it open with a four-spot in the third with another run scoring on an out, an error letting in a run, and the last two coming home on a single by Graig Nettles.
“We’re playing aggressive,” said Bucky Dent, whose suicide squeeze plated the second run. “We’re not waiting around for the big inning, we’re making things happen, doing things to get runs - stealing, hit-and-runs, suicides. We hadn’t been doing that for about a month and a half.”
Torrez had been a savior for the Yankees’ rotation, even though his contract situation remained in limbo. He had moved past that aggravation and yielded just seven earned runs in his last 45 innings, lowering his ERA almost a full run to 4.08.
“We’ve got to do it now, or we’re not going to do it at all,” Torrez said of getting on a roll if they hoped to overtake the Red Sox. “I don’t know about being the stopper. Maybe one of these days I’ll go out there and not have the same stuff I’ve had these five games. Then I’ll regroup.”
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