[jksander]

JUNE 17, 1956 . . . Did somebody call for a double-header? Camilo Pascual (3-4, 3.00 ERA, 69.0 IP, 45 K’s, 1.19 WHIP) got his 12th start of the season, going up against Philly’s red-hot Robin Roberts (6-6, 2.50 ERA, 101.0 IP, 64 K’s, 0.79 WHIP) in game one. And Pascual had a terrible start to his game, giving up a two-RBI double to Richie Ashburn, three consecutive hits to start the first inning, no outs. He calmed down and got out of the inning with just 19 pitches thrown, but against Roberts that wasn’t the best hole to dig right out of the gate. Philly added two runs in the bottom of the third, thanks to a homer by Smoky Burgess, trailing by four runs while having only given up three hits -- incredibly bad luck! And Roberts was on his A-game as well, meaning hits were almost impossible to find on our end. Pascual gave up another homer in the bottom of the sixth, and with two outs and a man on second we brought in Erskine while trailing 5-0, his job to simply mop up the mess and try not to make it worse. He did his job, but our hitters did not, and Roberts shut us down completely as the Phillies beat us 5-0 in the series’ third game.

Pascual fell to 3-5 on the year with a 3.38 ERA, giving up only five hits in 5.2 innings, but walking three and striking out only four, giving up five earned runs, three of which came off a pair of homers. Carl Erskine gave us 2.1 innings with just two additional hits, walking one batter and striking out another, but for the second game in a row he didn’t give up any runs, improving his ERA to 6.38 through 18.1 innings. He has the makings of a solid long reliever if he can keep pitching like he has in these last few games. We only had two hits all game, one for Robinson and one for Mays, and they were our only baserunners. Hard to do much with that.

We brought Bob Porterfield (2-0, 0.00 ERA, 7.2 IP, 2 K’s, 0.52 WHIP) out for a spot start in the second game. He pitched against Bob Rush (3-6, 4.73 ERA, 70.0 IP, 28 K’s, 1.34 WHIP). Kaline got himself a one-out triple in the top of the first, Robinson walked, and then Mays batted out to center, giving us two outs and men on the corners. But Banks grounded out to first, leaving Kaline stranded at third, a wasted scoring opportunity. Porterfield got a great hit into the outfield though with two outs in the top of the second, batting in a run with a triple to put us up 1-0! We loaded the bases in the top of the fourth, with Porterfield hitting a sac-fly to drive in our second run giving him a hand in all our offense so far today, and we went into the bottom of the inning up 2-0. He gave up his first run of the season in the bottom of the fourth, an RBI single by Alvin Dark, but he got us through the inning without conceding the lead, and my plan was to give him the fifth inning before going to the bullpen. He did even better than that, coming out with a quality start by getting through the sixth as well, with the 2-1 lead still intact! The fans then rained boos down on us as Banks, Maris and Baker notched consecutive hits in the top of the seventh, Baker’s single batting in a run to make it 3-1 with one out. Dick Whitman pinch hit for Roy Jarvis and reached base on a fielder’s choice, stealing second with the count 2-1 against Porterfield. We then brought in Crandall to pinch hit, since he’d be taking over as catcher anyway, and he slammed a hit into deep right, driving in another pair of runs, sending us into the bottom of the sixth with a 5-1 lead.

OUT OF CHARACTER: I didn’t realize the double-switch didn’t come into being until 1964, or so I’m told from one of my online leagues. So I wound up in the unenviable position of not having a catcher, since it subbed Hersh Freeman for Crandall and not for Whitman. Since I do not have a third activated catcher, I had to sub in a relief pitcher at catcher and just chalk it up to my character being drunk or something, lol! Lesson learned, be careful doing any pinch-anything involving the catcher.

Okay, so middle of the sixth, we brought Hersh Freeman in to pitch and had Larry Jansen come in to catch, with a 5-1 lead against the Phillies. And Hersh completely melted down, loading the bases with two outs -- Richie Ashburn then hit a single that scored Thomas Yuhas from third, and an E8 throwing error allowed Granny Hammer to come around and score, making it 5-3. With Koufax and x warming up in the bullpen, Bob Thurman pinch hit and mashed a three-run homer and this game was officially a disaster. Freeman got the final out, but we went into the top of the eighth trailing 6-5 in front of a hostile and very vocal home crowd that had no interest in us coming back from it. Koufax came in to pitch in the bottom of the eighth, still trailing by a run, getting three quick outs to at least give us a chance in the top of the ninth. Gene Baker got a base hit to start the frame, and Larry Jansen reached first on balls ... and Koufax then beat out an infield single to load the bases and bring up the top of the order! Al Rosen batted in the tying run with a hit into the outfield that kept the bases loaded, and Al Kaline hit one to almost the same spot, giving us a 7-6 lead and still no outs! That was all we’d get, however, and we went into the bottom of the ninth praying Koufax could give us one more solid inning. But Ernie Banks committed an error at short that allowed Granny Hammer to reach first safely, and with one out he walked Earl Torgeson, bringing up Ashburn, the bane of our existence. He hit into a fielder’s choice, and we got the out at second, bringing Randy Jackson up with runners on the corners and two outs. And that was all Philly needed. Jackson got a hit into left, and suddenly we were tied up again 7-7. And the Phillies took the win when a passed ball allowed Ashburn to score from third, ending this one as a humiliating 8-7 defeat.

Koufax took the loss, falling to 2-5 with a 3.83 ERA, going 1.2 innings with just one hit, but three walks as well, much of it due to the inexperienced catcher due to my botched double-switch. Porterfield had a great start, going six innings with one hit, four walks, four strikeouts and one earned run. Freeman’s one inning meltdown involved three hits, two walks and FIVE EARNED RUNS, destroying his now-6.63 ERA in the process. We outhit the Phillies 15-5 and still lost this one, something the Chicago press may never let me live down, since we walked a total of NINE BATTERS while committing three fielding errors. Unacceptable. Al Kaline, Ernie Banks and Gene Baker all had three hits apiece, and Porterfield himself drove in two runs. So much good, so much bad ... let’s all just go out and get ****faced on the bus while we drive up to New York for our next three games against the Giants.