Johnson's timing was perfect

Jonathon Papelbon was on the mound with his fastball, his scowl and a one-run lead. Three outs and the Red Sox were back in first place.

Dan Johnson was announced to the sellout crowd at Fenway Park as the Rays' pinch-hitter.

Dan Who?

Rays center fielder Fernando Perez, standing on the top step of the dugout, turned to B.J. Upton and said, "This is the type of guy D.J. will get."

"Really?" Upton said.

"Really," said Perez, who played with Johnson at Durham that summer. He'd seen what the left-handed Johnson could do against a right-hander who throws smoke.

"It's kind of weird," said Johnson, a non-roster invitee to Rays camp. "I usually hit closers pretty good during my career. I'm kind of comfortable in that situation. It's kind of mano a mano, power vs. power."

It was Sept. 9, 2008. A Tuesday night. The Rays clung to first place in the American League East. The Red Sox were charging.

"I remember it like it was yesterday," Rays pitcher J.P. Howell said. "That's how bizarre it was. I'll never forget that night."

Johnson, who was called up from Durham that day, woke up that morning in Scranton, Pa., and didn't arrive at Fenway until just before the start of the game. Blame delayed flights and Boston's rush-hour traffic. He was supposed to be the Rays' designated hitter that night. He was scratched from the lineup. No batting practice. No practice swings in the cage.

"That's ridiculous," Rays first baseman Carlos Pena said.

But it was 2008, the year of 9 = 8, the year of any Ray, any night.

"You have to have every guy believing that this is their night, that this is the game they pick the team up," said Ben Zobrist, who started that night in center and finished the game in left field.

"That team had so many guys who wanted to be in that situation," pitcher Dan Wheeler said.

It was Wheeler who allowed a two-out, two-run homer to Jason Bay in the bottom of the eighth that turned a 3-2 Rays lead to the 4-3 deficit. Now, Wheeler sat in the dugout, as angry as he'd ever been.

"I wasn't too happy," Wheeler said. "You give up the lead that late and you have one of the best closers in the game coming in, you're not liking your chances."

"He had to be sick," Howell said.

A Boston victory would push the Red Sox into first place, a half-game ahead of the Rays.

"Tables turn," Wheeler said. "Who knows what happens then. They were the defending world champs. They had the experience."

All the Rays had was a belief in themselves, an understanding that the game was never over until the 27th out.

"We were waiting for the magic to happen," Pena said. "We were expecting it."

Enter the weary traveler.

"Shoot," Johnson said, "I hadn't hit anything for a couple of days. I was going through a little slump."

Johnson was finally in a familiar place that day - the batter's box. And he was facing a pitcher he could, as Perez said, "get."

"Someone said the same thing in the bullpen," Howell said. "I'm like, jinx it, man. Now he'll never do it."

Papelbon threw three straight balls, then a strike.

Johnson swung at the next pitch, a fastball, and fouled it back.

"I was like, 'Awww!'" Zobrist said. "His timing was perfect. He was right on it. I was thinking, I hope he throws him another one because I don't think he's going to miss it."

Papelbon threw Johnson another fastball.

"Chest high," Zobrist said.

Johnson swung.

"He throws hard enough to supply a lot of power," Johnson said. "You put the barrel on the ball with the speed of his pitch, it's going to go."

CRACK!

"Everyone knew it was gone," Zobrist said.

"It was a bomb," Pena said.

"The biggest home run in team history," Upton said.

There were 37,573 fans in Fenway Park. Most grew silent as they watched the baseball disappear into the seats behind the Red Sox bullpen.

"It was eerily quiet," Johnson said. "But I was so excited, I bet I ran the fastest I ever ran around the bases, because I wanted to get back in the dugout and celebrate with everybody else."

Howell was stunned.

"I could not believe what I saw," he said.

Then the shock wore off.

"I remember I could hear myself, and you can never hear yourself in Fenway," Howell said. "When I yelled, it was like yelling in a library."

Perez doubled one out later and scored the eventual winning run on a double by Dioner Navarro.

The lead over the Red Sox grew to 1.5 games and then 2.5 the following night when a three-run homer in the 14th inning by Pena broke a 1-1 tie.

Those were the first two wins in Boston that season by the Rays, who went on to win the division, beat the Red Sox in a seven-game ALCS and advance to the World Series. More than one player drew the analogy between Sept. 9, 2008, and a boxer fighting his way off the ropes. Cliched, yes, but accurate.

"We just kept coming at you," Zobrist said. "Regardless of how much you came at us, we're still coming out you."

"That two-game stretch showed what kind of will that team had," Wheeler said. "And most of us are still here, so we know it's still in us."