Last night’s 14-inning win by the Nats over the Rangers was important for several reasons. First, it broke a three-game skid and provided a win to a franchise that badly needed one. Up until last night the ol’ town team had gone 5-12 in June. Ugh. Second, it was a great night for Elijah Dukes who had five hits, including the game-winner. Its good to see Dukes succeed. He could be, along with Zimmerman, the future non-pitching nucleus of the team. After his dust up with Manny in the dugout a week ago a five-hit night is just what the doc ordered.

What was also interesting was Christian Guzman’s performance. Guzman is having a hell of a year, hitting .312 (45 points above his career average) and piling up 141 total bases in just 75 games (that’s more than he had in 142 games in ‘05). Given his great performance at the plate thus far, not to mention a 12-game hitting streak which was snapped yesterday, last night he went 0 for 7. Just one of those nights that everyone has at some point in their career. As it happens, that 0-fer display is the first of the bookends mentioned in the title of this post. The other is provided by one Cesar “Cocoa” Gutierrez.

You don’t know any Cesar Gutierrez? Do not fret. No one else does either. But one Sunday night 38 years ago today he had a game which few others have matched. His line in the box score looked like this:

Player          AB     R     H     RBI     TB     BB     K

Gutierrez     7       3      7         1         8       0       0

Yes, he went 7 for 7. This most improbable of feats - something that only two other players have accomplished in the last 52 years - was achieved by a lifetime .235 hitter who never hit one out of the park.

Gutierrez was playing his first full season with the Tigers after having been sent there by the Giants toward the end of the ‘69 season. He joined a team coming off a World Series championship year and shared the clubhouse with guys who I watched with dread when they came to Fenway: Al Kaline, Norm Cash, Mickey Lolich and Denny McLaine.

The Tigers were in Cleveland that day and they had won the first half of a double-header 7 - 2 but Gutierrez didn’t play in that game. For the nightcap, he replaced Ken Szotkiewicz at shortstop. Szotkiewicz was a weak hitting infielder - even compared to Gutierrez - and was benched for the evening tilt by manager Mayo Smith. As it turned out, the 47 games Szotkiewicz playied for the Tigers that year would comprise the entirety of his career.

Few of the 24,000 people who attended that night in Cleveland would have imagined the game they would enjoy - save for the fact that the Indians lost. The Tigers pushed a run across in the first but Cleveland opened up with five of their own in the first and added another in their half of the second. Detroit matched the score with four runs in the third and, after some back and forth scoring in the ensuing innings, tied it at eight-all in the top of the eighth when Gutierrez singled to right. In all there were 34 total hits in the 12-inning game and the Tigers won it 9 - 8 on a homer by Mickey Stanley. Gutierrez followed Stanley in the order that night and supplied his seventh hit but was erased trying to steal second.

Gutierrez would play a total of 135 games that season but just 38 in 1971. Then, he was done. A total of 223 games stretched over four years. But on one night in Cleveland, Ohio the kid from the coastal town of Cabimas, Venezuela was perfect.

Diamond Nuggets

One of Gutierrez’s teammates that June night was Willie Horton whom I should have added to the list of Tigers I hated to see enter Fenway. He was a career .273 hitter who hit with power. He played 18 seasons and had almost 2,000 hits. A heck of a career. Perhaps one of those “peripheral greats” Mark talks about.