[jksander]

MAY 27, 1957 . . . Saul Rogovin (5-3, 1.72 ERA, 68.0 IP, 75 K’s, 0.74 WHIP) started our game tonight against St. Louis, our first of a two-game series against the 15-22 Cardinals. They started Dave Hillman (1-1, 5.37 ERA, 53.2 IP, 27 K’s, 1.58 WHIP). Willie Mays hit an RBI triple to get us on the board in the top of the fourth, and Robinson grounded out to first but a second run scored to make it 2-0. Rogovin blew a perfect game and his no-hitter in the bottom of the seventh with a hit by Andy Carey, but got out of the inning with a double play to keep the margin at two runs, a margin he held through the remainder of the game as we shut the Cardinals out 2-0.

Rogovin improved to 6-3 with a 1.52 ERA, striking out 10 batters and allowing just the one hit off 111 pitches. We hit nine times as a team, led by Roger Maris with three hits and a run scored. Mays batted in a run and scored another, and Al Rosen put up two hits but never scored. Robinson’s groundout batted in our other run.

MAY 28, 1957 . . . Camilo Pascual (5-1, 1.96 ERA, 59.2 IP, 43 K’s, 0.72 WHIP) got the start tonight against Bob Gibson (2-1, 1.52 ERA, 29.2 IP, 8 K’s, 1.38 WHIP). Crandall popped out to center, driving in a run via Kaline from third to give us a 1-0 lead in the top of the second, and Al Rosen drove one home with a groundout to first, Poppell scoring from third to make it 2-0 in the top of the third. Pascual loaded the bases in the bottom of the fifth, but got out of the jam without a run scoring. Willie Mays then hit a three-run homer in the top of the seventh to blow the game wide open, giving us a 5-0 lead with his 10th homer of the season! The Cardinals got on the board in the bottom of the eighth with an RBI single by Willie McCovey, but they let us load the bases in the top of the ninth, a pop-out to left by Mays scoring a run for us to negate it. Pascual closed it out with ease, completing the 6-1 victory for a two-game sweep.

Pascual improved to 6-1 with a 1.70 ERA, striking out nine with three walks and the one earned run off four hits. We hit eight times, led by Willie Mays with one hit, a sac-fly, one run and four RBIs. Rosen and Kaline each hit twice and scored a run each, while Rosen added two walks and an RBI as well. We have three games in two days coming up in Milwaukee tomorrow and Thursday, followed by a four-game in three-day weekend set against the Redlegs.We’ve played six games in the last five days, and with no days off our rotation’s going to get a real workout with seven in the next five days.

MAY 29, 1957 . . . Carl Erskine (1-1, 3.68 ERA, 14.2 IP, 9 K’s, 1.64 WHIP) started tonight against the Braves, facing Pedro Ramos, a 22-year-old coming up for his first major league appearance this year, having gone 7-3 this year with a 2.08 ERA while pitching for Wichita in AAA. He’s the #21 prospect in the majors, drafted 25th overall by the White Sox back in ’53. He’s played in 15 games with the Braves over the last two seasons, but has only started three times. Del Crandall got a hit in the top of the second that drove in a run to give us a 1-0 lead, but the Braves tied it up quickly with an RBI single by Ramos in the bottom of the second. Don Gross came in to pitch following the seventh-inning stretch, the score still knotted up 1-1, and Del Crandall hit a solo homer in the top of the eighth to give us a 2-1 lead, his fourth homer of the season! Gross got two outs in the bottom of the ninth but then gave up a solo homer to Lee Walls that tied the game. He got the final out with ease, but we went into extra innings knotted 2-2.

Dick Drott came out and got us three outs in the bottom of the 10th, but he threw 21 pitches to get there, and we couldn’t buy a hit. He stayed out and got us three quick outs in the bottom of the 11th, and we finally got going in the top of the 12th, Mays and Robinson getting quick hits to put Mays on third without an out. Kaline hit a sac-fly to right to drive Mays home for the go-ahead run, and Crandall got a hit into center to push Robinson to third with Ed Bouchee coming in to hit for Drott. Bouchee struck out to end the inning, and we went into the bottom of the frame leading 3-2 with Mike McCormick coming in to pitch. He did what needed to be done, getting a strikeout and a pair of flyouts to end the game after 12 innings as a 3-2 victory for the Cubs!

Carl Erskine gave us six innings with four hits, seven strikeouts and only three walks, his one earned run improving his ERA to 3.05. Gross then lasted three innings with two hits, three strikeouts and an earned run, giving him a 2.25 ERA through 16 innings. Dick Drott got the win, improving to 2-2 with a 4.40 ERA, walking two batters, and McCormick earned his first save of the year with a strikeout to improve his to 11.25 through four innings. We outhit the Braves 8-6, led by Del Crandall, who hit three times for a run and two RBIs.

Tomorrow we’ll play a doubleheader, with Koufax and Cohen likely to pitch, so hopefully we won’t need to rely much on the bullpen which was taxed physically by the 12-inning fight this evening. We currently have a two-game lead on the Dodgers, our record now at 30-12 to their 26-12.
 
MAY 30, 1957 . . . Another doubleheader day is upon us, this time against Milwaukee on a sunny 64-degree Sunday afternoon in front of close to 22,000 Braves fans -- you can always count on this team to draw a crowd against us, even when they are clinging to a .500 record. Sandy Koufax (4-2, 1.83 ERA, 54.0 IP, 47 K’s, 0.78 WHIP) started the first game, facing Milwaukee’s Johnny Antonelli (1-6, 5.14 ERA, 61.1 IP, 34 K’s, 1.45 WHIP). In the top of the third we broke the game open with a three-run homer by Roger Maris, his fifth of the year, that gave us a 3-0 lead out of nowhere. Jackie Robinson then added an RBI double to make it 4-0 before Mays was picked off trying to add another instead of staying at third, ending the frame. With two outs and men on first and second in the top of the fourth, Jack Poppell stole third and, thanks to a throwing error, came around to make it a five-run lead. Mike McCormick came in with two outs in the bottom of the eighth to relieve Koufax, who was beginning to tire, and he got us through the remainder without a lot of fuss, holding on to the 5-0 shutout win.

Koufax got the win, improving to 5-2 with a 1.61 ERA, allowing four hits with five strikeouts and a walk through 7.2 innings. McCormick had a good night, adding another 1.1 innings with one hit, one walk and one strikeout, getting his ERA down to 8.44 now that he’s starting to get out of the bullpen a little more often. We outhit them 12-5, led by Jack Poppell, who hit three times, walked once and stole three bases, scoring twice. Maris and Robinson each hit twice, with Maris’ homer getting us going in a big way. He’s also now batting above .300 for the first time in his career! All Star voting just started, but he’s improved so much already I think he’s got a legitimate shot at his first appearance in that showcase.

In game two we had Hy Cohen (4-2, 2.23 ERA, 72.2 IP, 55 K’s, 0.91 WHIP) ready to go on four days’ rest, going up against Warren Spahn (5-3, 3.22 ERA, 72.2 IP, 21 K’s, 1.22 WHIP). Both pitchers were on the top of their games, with only one hit each in the first five innings, no runs scored. We went into the bottom of the seventh still without a score, each pitcher with a pair of hits, and then Cohen got sloppy, giving up back to back hits to Johnny Logan and Hank Aaron to give Milwaukee a runner in scoring position for the first time. But he got out of the frame with a strikeout and a double play to stay unblemished. Les Moss stunned everyone by hitting a triple to start the top of the eighth, and he scored on a sac-fly by Cohen to put us up 1-0! That wound up being all we needed -- Cohen stayed out and completed the game, and we shut the Braves out by the one run to complete the sweep.

Cohen improved to 5-2 with a 1.98 ERA, striking out five and walking one while allowing just four hits. We only managed five hits, but we also picked up five walks off a tiring Spahn, led by backup catcher Les Moss with two hits and a run scored, the run batted in by Cohen with the sac-fly. With the win we improved to 32-12 heading into our four-game set against the last place Redlegs on their field.