BOSTON -- Opening Day is a time to reintroduce baseball to the fans who didn't get to see the teams train in Florida.
So yesterday, the Boston Red Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays obliged the baseball-hungry fans by showing them a little bit of everything in a four-hour, 12-minute grinder at Fenway Park.
Bloop hits. Home runs. Errors. Diving catches. Walks. More walks. Hit-batsmen. A double steal. A crossed-up catcher. A bungled call. An ejection. Pitching changes. More pitching changes. A botched sacrifice-bunt attempt. A caught-stealing.
In other words, a little bit of everything.
The only thing the Red Sox' fans didn't get to see, though, was a Boston win. The Sox were nipped, 12-11, on Darrin Fletcher's sacrifice fly off closer Ugueth Urbina in the ninth inning.
Fletcher's game-winning RBI was set up by a double steal, which was pulled off without a throw from catcher Jason Varitek because Urbina crossed him up, throwing a slider that clanged off the mitt instead of the fastball he had been expecting.
And while the final score was disappointing for Sox' fans, what was even more disturbing was that Boston's vaunted ace, Pedro Martinez, was tagged for seven runs, tying a career high, in only three-plus innings.
That was hardly the encouraging sign the Sox and their fans were hoping to see from their three-time Cy Young Award winner, who is trying to bounce back from the rotator cuff troubles that limited him to 18 starts last year.
"The kid is human," said Grady Little after his managerial debut in a Red Sox uniform.
Boston did, however, manage to take Pedro off the hook by rallying from 3-0, 7-1 and 8-3 deficits. Solo homers by Jose Offerman (first inning), Trot Nixon (second) and Varitek (second) and a three-run bomb to center by new first baseman Tony Clark (3-for-5) in the third off Toronto starter Chris Carpenter pulled the Sox to within 8-6. A five-run fourth guaranteed Martinez of a no-decision.
"He'll be fine," said right fielder Trot Nixon. "Petey didn't have his game, and that's fine. They hit some pitches hard and they found some holes with some others. But Petey will pick us up a whole lot more than we'll have to pick him up."
The Sox' fourth-inning outburst, which featured a two-run single by second baseman Rey Sanchez and an RBI apiece from Shea Hillenbrand, Varitek and Johnny Damon, gave Darren Oliver a chance to pick up a win in his first game with the Sox.
But the left-hander gave the lead back in the fifth, surrendering three runs as the Jays pulled even at 11-11. And though each team had a chance or two thereafter, it wasn't until the ninth that another run was scored, deciding the game.
"What a game," said Damon, who also was making his Red Sox debut. "It feels like we played three games."
"That was one of those slobber-knocker games," said Nixon.
"It was a full-moon type of game," added Varitek, in his first game since last June 7, when he suffered a fractured right elbow while making a diving catch of a fouled bunt attempt.
It was a game full of scoring chances for both sides. And while the teams combined for 23 runs, they also combined to strand 27 baserunners, 14 left on by Boston, including three occasions where the bases were left full. Toronto pitchers walked 13. The Red Sox also banged out 13 hits. The Sox were retired in order only once.
Indeed, Boston scored in each of its first four innings, but squandered a glittering chance to go ahead again in the fifth. With the bases filled and two outs in an 11-11 deadlock, Sanchez worked the count full. But rookie right-hander Scott Cassidy whiffed him.
Sanchez had another chance to be a hero in the seventh, but left fielder Jose Cruz Jr. made a sparkling all-out dive, snaring Sanchez's sinking liner in left-center a split-second before it would have hit the turf.
Then there was the eighth. The speedy Damon led off by drawing a walk from veteran left-hander Dan Plesac. But Offerman fouled out on a bunt try, and Damon was a dead duck trying to swipe second, the Jays guessing right by calling a pitchout with Nomar Garciaparra at the plate.
"I thought I had a good jump, but I was running into a 20-mile-an-hour wind. That can throw you three or four steps off pace. That's a big reason I got thrown out," said Damon, who stole 27 bases for Oakland last year and 46 the previous year for Kansas City.
The Blue Jays were more successful in their attempt at larceny, in the ninth. Urbina issued a one-out walk to Raul Mondesi, and Carlos Delgado (3-for-3) lined a single to right. On a 0-and-1 pitch to Cruz, they took off, making it without a throw.
"We got crossed up on that pitch," said Varitek. "I called a fastball and got a slider. When you're expecting something and get something else, it's hard to adjust."
After the game, Urbina had no comment, but the net result of the miscommunication was that the Jays had two runners in scoring position with one out. Cruz was intentionally walked, filling the bases, but Fletcher foiled the strategy by lifting a fly ball to deep center, delivering Mondesi with the tie-breaking run.
The Sox tried to mount one more comeback, with Rickey Henderson replacing Clark after the first baseman's one-out single. But Kelvim Escobar, who had quelled an uprising in the eighth, did likewise in the ninth, notching the final out of a very long day.
"It was just one game," said Nixon. "It's hard to believe, but there are 161 more games to go. It would have been easy for us when we got down, 7-1, to pack it in, but we battled back. The fans got their money's worth, everything except a win."
