[jksander]

JUNE 25, 1954 . . . Hy Cohen is ready to go against the Giants in game one, with his 6-2 record, 4.56 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and 44 K’s through 73 innings. Batters have only been hitting .229 against him this year, a solid rookie season by any stretch. He’ll be up against Bill Connelly (2-2, 3.03 ERA, 35.2 IP, 18 Ks, 1.35 WHIP) for the Giants, who has started three games and played five out of the bullpen so far this year, as the Giants try and figure out anything they can to stop their freefall.

This game turned into a pitchers’ duel early on, with only three hits between the two teams through three innings. Roger Maris got a walk in the fourth, then stole second and an errant throw trying to pick him off allowed him to reach third! Al Rosen got a shot into left that drove Maris home, putting us up 1-0 in the top of the fourth with just one out, but a double play kept the Giants in this one. Connelly continued to pitch well enough -- we only had two hits in the first six innings -- and heading into the bottom of the sixth we still held the slim 1-0 lead. Hy Cohen continued to pitch fireballs, but our batters weren’t making any contact. Cohen got us through the eighth still leading by the one run, but we couldn’t add any insurance in the top of the ninth. Cohen came in to finish what he started, getting two quick outs and then surrendering a walk and a single to right, and after 138 pitches he was done. We brought Consuegra in to get the final out, and a quick groundout to first ended the game! We won this one 1-0 in spite of our inability to hit, stealing a game from the Giants who had outhit us and still floundered.

Cohen got the win, improving to 7-2 with a 4.08 ERA thanks to 8.2 innings of six-hit baseball -- his six strikeouts were top notch, but his five walks wore him down and kept us on a razor’s edge for most of the night. Consuegra earned his 12th save, throwing only three pitches, but with two runners on base we NEEDED that out badly. We only had two hits the entire game, but the five walks Connelly threw gave us extra baserunners, and Maris managed to score our only run without even making contact! Cavarretta was walked three times, and Kaline and Rosen each got one hit -- Rosen collecting the RBI from the Maris score.

With the win we improved to 50-21 and brought our lead in the NL back to double digits over the Redlegs, in the same game where the Giants notched their 50th LOSS of the year.

JUNE 26, 1954 . . . Joe Dobson is back on the mound tonight -- since becoming a Cub, in three appearances (two starts) he’s gone 0-1 with a 6.30 ERA and 1.50 WHIP through 10 innings, with five strikeouts. He’ll pitch against Dave Kolso (4-4, 4.10 ERA, 68.0 IP, 20 K’s, 1.46 WHIP) of the Giants, in a game that we were willing to treat as a bullpen game if necessary. But we took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first thanks to Cavarretta’s seventh homer of the year, which at least gave Dobson a little rope starting out. He gave up a run to the Giants in the bottom of the inning but got out of the frame with just two hits and the 2-1 lead still intact, and Al Kaline hit a three-run blast in the top of the second, his 11th this year, to make it a 5-1 lead. The Giants scored a single run in the bottom of the second, but Willie Mays hit a run-scoring double in the top of the fifth to extend our lead back to four runs, up 6-2, and with the bases loaded and only one out, Al Rosen hit a sac-fly to left, scoring another. Elston Howard then scored two more with a triple and we went into the bottom of the fifth leading 9-2. Vern Fear came in to pitch for Dobson, pitching two perfect innings in the fifth and sixth, and Al Rosen hit a solo homer in the top of the 7th to make it 10-2, his 11th homer of the season. Fear gave up a solo homer in the bottom of the seventh, but then got three quick outs, two by strikeout, to end the inning with us still leading by seven runs. Ernie Banks added a two-run homer in the top of the eighth to give him a dozen four-baggers this year and giving us a 12-3 lead. Tom Ferrick came in for Fear with two outs in the bottom of the eighth and gave up a two-run homer on his third pitch of the night, but he got the final out we needed and then stayed in for the ninth, getting all the remaining outs without any mess as we stomped the Giants 12-5.

Vern Fear got the win, improving to 2-0 on the year with a 1.33 ERA thanks to 3.2 innings of one-hit, five strikeout ball. He wound up with two runs given up (only one earned) over 48 pitches. Dobson lasted four innings and gave up four hits with two strikeouts for two earned runs, improving his ERA to 5.79 on the year. And Ferrick, though he gave up the one hit (a home run) for an earned run of his own, he also struck out a batter and didn’t do any damage in the ninth, keeping his ERA at a respectable 3.65 for the season.

Not bad for a bullpen game -- we only gave up six hits all night, and we notched 15 of our own, led by Cavarretta with four hits for a run and two batted in, making up for his three walk no-fer yesterday evening. Kaline, Mays, Howard and Baker each had two hits as well, with Kaline turning his two in to three runs and three more batted in. Banks, Rosen and Howard each batted in a pair as well.

JUNE 27, 1954 . . . Tonight’s leader from the mound will be Saul Rogovin (9-1, 1.81 ERA, 94.1 IP, 60 K’s, 0.94 WHIP), fresh off his first loss of the year. He’ll be facing New York’s Jack Harshman (2-7, 3.88 ERA, 111.1 IP, 54 K’s, 1.50 WHIP) in the final game of this series.

Phil Cavarretta started the game out with a solo homer in the top of the first, keeping him red hot, with eight homers for the season and five hits in his last six at-bats! But New York got the run back in the bottom of the first, Dusty Rhodes scoring on an error, and we could tell they were really going to fight to avoid the sweep. Rogovin struggled in the second, giving up two hits -- one a run-scoring triple -- with just a single out. But he got a quick throw to home to keep the triple from becoming a run, and a third out got us out of the inning with just the one-run deficit. And things took a bad turn in the bottom of the third -- Saul Rogovin started to have pain in his shoulder, and he tried to pitch through it to at least get us through the inning -- with Harry Dorish warming up as quickly as we could. He got the final out, but was in fairly intense pain and we rushed him out of the stadium between innings to get his shoulder examined as quickly as possible. Not another major pitching injury ...

While we waited to hear back about Rogovin, Al Rosen hit a solo shot to left in the top of the fourth to tie the game 2-2, giving him a dozen homers for the season, and with the bases loaded McCullough hit a double to score two and give us a 4-2 lead. Peanuts Lowery, in his first game this season as a backup, walked the bases loaded again, and Joe Collins, batting for Rogovin, walked in a run to make it 5-2, still with no outs. Our team, fully united behind making sure Rogovin wouldn’t get tagged for a loss, gave us a three-run cushion heading into the botom of the fourth, with Harry Dorish coming in to protect it in an unexpected bullpen game.

Gene Baker added a solo blast in the top of the fifth, his fourth of the year, to make it 6-2. Dorish got us through the fifth inning without any damage, and Ernie Banks added a run-scoring single in the top of the sixth to expand the lead to five runs. Dorish got three quick outs in the sixth. Tom Ferrick came in to protect the 7-2 lead in the bottom of the seventh, and he set the batters down one, two, three in the inning, and Russ Snyder hit a towering blast to right, a 413-footer that made our lead 8-2 in the top of the eighth, his second homer of his rookie season! With a six-run cushion, Ferrick was able to stay out in the bottom of the eighth, and he pitched very efficiently, getting three more outs with just 13 total pitches thrown over two innings, so we kept him in to finish the game. And he did so with even more of a lead -- McCullough hit a spectacular inside-the-park homer, only his third home run of the year in any form, to give us a seven-run lead. Ferrick got three more outs to end the game as a 9-2 Cubs victory!

Harry Dorish improved to 3-1 with a 1.04 ERA, lasting three full innings on just two hits, with a strikeout and a walk through 48 pitches. Tom Ferrick then closed the game out, completing a three-inning save by giving up no hits, throwing 29 pitches to thoroughly dominate the opposition even without any K’s. His ERA is now 2.93 on the season through 15.1 innings, and he has two saves thus far. Rogovin, who lasted through the first three innings before injuring his shoulder, had given up only four hits and two runs (one earned) through 47 pitches. His ERA dipped slightly to 1.85.

The good news, if you can call it that, is that we don’t think Rogovin is going to need surgery on his shoulder. The bad news is that it is indeed a strained UCL, and he’ll be out the rest of the season. That’s going to leave us a huge hole to fill -- two potential Cy Young candidates now out for the season. Bob Spicer will stay up at the major league level in the bullpen but will now have to play more of a spot starter role as well, with Cohen, Hacker and Diehl as our main rotation -- Dobson and Spicer both have good endurance and should be able to back those three up, but it’s going to be a tough road to protect this division lead.