When the Boston Red Sox won 17 of their first 20 games this season, two thoughts came to mind: the 1984 Detroit Tigers and the 2018 New York Yankees. Could the Yankees, whose 20-game record was 11-9, catch up and stay even with the Red Sox, who looked awesome in those first 20 games, and could the Red Sox maintain their torrid pace long enough to match or exceed the Tigers’ even more torrid pace of the first month of the ‘84 season?
Although no other team has ever won 35 of its first 40 games, strong starts are not unusual. It’s also not unusual for teams to win a bunch of games early, then fade quickly. The ’84 Tigers, though, did not fade.
They won the first nine games, 16 of the first 17, 19 of the first 21, 26 of the first 30 and 35 of the first 40 en route to a 104-58 season record.
“There was no explanation for the way we were playing,” Jack Morris said by telephone last Friday. “We were just playing baseball. We didn’t know what was going on.”
According to Elias Sports Bureau, the Tigers are the only team since 1900 to win at least 35 of their first 40 games. Only five teams since 1900 won at least 32 of their first 40 decisions. The 1984 Tigers are the only team to do that since 1940.
The Tigers’ remarkable record run rocketed them to an 8 ½-game division lead, and they rode it to the American League East championship, winning by 15 games.
Managed by the inimitable Sparky Anderson, the Tigers didn’t let up once they made the playoffs. They defeated Kansas City in the league championship series and San Diego in the World Series.
They are a unique group because no team has duplicated their feat: Morris, Dan Petry, Milt Wilcox, Willie (Guillermo) Hernandez, Lance Parrish, Chet Lemon, Darrell Evans, Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker. Morris and Trammell will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in July.
A non-playing member of that team is my Hall of Famer. On Aug. 31, 1984, General Manager Bill LaJoie acquired outfielder Fred Lynn from the Red Sox. To be eligible for the post-season, Lynn had to be physically in the city where the Tigers were playing that night (Oakland).
At midnight, the plane Lynn was flying to Oakland had entered Oakland air space but had not landed. People told Lajoie he could say Lynn was in Oakland, but the general manager felt that stance would be cheating and he wasn’t going to cheat.
That’s not the end of the story. After the Lajoie-Lynn story appeared in The New York Times, a European humanitarian organization voted to give Lajoie an award for his honesty. The Tigers, however, wouldn’t pay for Lajoie’s flight to Europe to accept the award.
Another kind of flight, a current one, appears to be under threat of being grounded, if not suffering a crash landing.
The Red Sox, despite their great takeoff, appear to have been recalled to the airport to clear the flight path for the streaking Yankees. Yes, these spurts, both winning and losing, can be temporary, but the Yankees appear to be for real, with their starting pitchers providing more than expected.
Starting pitching was expected to be the Yankees’ weakness, but if CC Sabathia, the aging and plus-size pitcher can go seven innings and last 97 effective pitches, the Yankees can expect to be better than they thought they would be.
Another unexpected development, at least outside the confines of the Yankees’ clubhouse: the hitting of shortstop Didi Gregorius.
The shortstop’s name appeared throughout the league leaders entering Monday’s games:
First in runs batted in (30), first in slugging (.766), tied for first in home runs (10), first in home batting average (.418), tied for first in extra-base hits (19), tied for second in runs scored (24), fifth in batting average (.340), tied for third in walks (18), sixth in on-base (.436), fourth in hitting against right-handed pitchers (.344).
That’s certainly enough to ponder for a while and think about this shortstop who was born in the Netherlands, lives in Curacao and speaks Papiamento, Dutch, Spanish and English.
Gregorius has become an integral part of an offense whose best description is awesome. Maybe it’ll be only for a week or so, but my guess is by the time the Yankees are finished swatting baseballs this season the Red Sox will be looking up at them.