Boston Red Sox history: 4 greatest performances in a losing effort
By Kevin Henry
Great performances on the diamond don’t always happen during a win. Many times, a player can have a great individual effort, despite his team coming out on the short end of the score. With that in mind, we take a look today at the four greatest performances by a Boston Red Sox player that happened during a loss.
We will start with the fourth-greatest performance and work our way up to number one on the list. All statistics come from the Stathead component of Baseball-Reference.com.
Kevin Millar had an amazing game for the Boston Red Sox in a loss to the New York Yankees
In the 2004 season (the one that Red Sox fans will remember well as a campaign that earned the franchise its first World Series trophy since 1918), Boston was playing in a July home series against the arch-rival New York Yankees.
In the opening game of that three-game series (on Friday, July 23), Kevin Millar, batting seventh in the Red Sox lineup, went 3-for-4 with three solo homers (hitting them in the fourth, sixth, and eighth innings) to total 12 bases. New York, however, would score what would be the winning run in the top of the ninth on an Alex Rodriguez RBI single to give the Yankees an 8-7 win.
Interesting note: Millar would hit just 18 home runs all season and July would be his best month at the plate for not only hitting long balls (six in all), but also for overall performance (posting a .373/.429/.639 slash line with a 1.067 OPS).