The 2003 season marked the year of the closer by committee. Those teams were good, but there were always some flaws.” Signing Keith Foulke ![]() “You have the greatest pitcher in baseball, one of them, and it’s like you needed that next guy. “It always seemed like we didn’t have that stable guy to go with Pedro and I always felt like that was the biggest difference,” Merloni said. “It was kind of like you have a one-two punch to match up with anybody’s one-two punch in Schilling and Pedro.” Millar now serves as a color commentator on NESN while also hosting ‘Intentional Talk’ on MLB Network. “You can have teams that overachieve in certain situations, but at the end of the day, Curt Schilling is one of the best postgame pitchers in the history of this game and to be able to add him, who’s already a champion,” said Kevin Millar, who signed as a free agent ahead of the 2003 season. Adding a big-game starter for 2004 became a priority. If there had been, Martinez might not have been as worn down by Game 7. Derek Lowe and Tim Wakefield each pitched well out of the rotation in 2003, but still, the Red Sox relied heavily on Martinez. ![]() Outside of Pedro Martinez, the Red Sox lacked a true front-end starter to match the Yankees’ tandem of Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina. The famous Thanksgiving Day recruitment dinner in which GM Theo Epstein convinced Schilling to waive his no-trade clause led to the Red Sox landing the accomplished veteran. The ramifications of that Game 7 loss led to three of the most significant moves the organization made ahead of 2004, ones that arguably pushed them over the top against the Yankees: Adding Curt Schilling We felt like we should have won that series. “That (2003) team did not seem like it was further away. “We were in a series with the Yankees in ‘99 and, not that we were overmatched, but it just seemed like we were further away,” said Lou Merloni, who played in Boston from 1998 to 2003 and currently serves as a color commentator on Red Sox broadcasts on NESN and WEEI. The new ownership group was in its infancy and the Red Sox were finally on the doorstep of competing with New York again. And yeah so we turned the page quickly and started working toward improving the team and trying to achieve our goals.” ![]() It just made us - if you could want it even more - it made us want it even more. “But absolutely even further reinvigorated us to do anything we could to change the narrative and get over the hump. “On the one hand, in the immediate aftermath we were devastated by the loss and felt like it slipped away from us,” O’Halloran said. Yet that Game 7 loss in 2003 set the stage for a domino effect of decisions that cascaded throughout that offseason into 2004. 509 winning percentage.īaseball Almanac is pleased to present a unique set of rosters not easilyįound on the Internet.For many, the pain of 2003 made the triumph of 2004 even more precious. They played their home games at Fenway Park (Park Factors: 101/101) where 2,625,333 fans witnessed their 2001 Red Sox finish the season with a. The 2001 Boston Red Sox played 161 games during the regular season, won 82 games, lost 79 games, and finished in second position. 2001 Boston Red Sox Roster | Research by Baseball Almanac
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