[jksander]

May 4, 1947: I’ve decided to drop Stan Ferens to AAA to make room for Amos Watson, who in seven games at the AAA level since we poached him from the NeL has picked up four saves in nine innings, with six hits and three walks against him for two earned runs. We’ve got a doubleheader today against Boston, Dutch Leonard (2-2, 2.31 ERA, 35.0 IP, 11 K, 0.94 WHIP) getting his normal start on four-days’ rest, against Boston’s Mickey Harris (0-2, 2.95 ERA, 21.1 IP, 19 K, 1.41 WHIP) in the day’s first game. We were quick to strike, Dillinger and Walker scoring off a one-out triple that followed one by leadoff man Dillinger earlier in the first inning. Arky Vaughn singled in a third run and we were off to the races. Vaughn singled in another run in the bottom of the fifth to extend our lead to four, and Dutch Leonard stayed out there to complete the 4-0 shutout as Boston’s slide continued. Leonard allowed six hits and three walks, striking out four as he held his ground, and we had nine hits ourselves, led by Vaughn who had three hits and two runs batted in.

Fred Sanford would have been up in the rotation, but he’s on three days rest, so we’re going with a bullpen start from Jack Kramer (1-1, 5.40 ERA, 15.0 IP, 7 K, 1.40 WHIP) who threw 22 pitches three days ago without getting an out ... so he definitely wanted to show a better side of his skills today. He did very well early, blanking Boston for four straight, and in the bottom of the fourth inning our offense struck gold, scoring off an RBI double from Judnich and RBI singles from Moses, Moss and Kramer to put us up 4-0 quite quickly. Boston got on the board in the top of the sixth with an RBI single by Ted Williams, but we got it back in the bottom of the inning off another RBI single by our pitcher to keep us in the lead by four. We went to the bullpen in the top of the seventh, bringing out the rookie Amos Watson, who stranded a pair as we went into the stretch leading 5-1. My original plan had been to bring out Zoldak in the eighth, but in the bottom of the seventh we got an RBI double from Stephens, an RBI single from Judnich and an RBI double from Vaughn to blow our lead up to seven runs ... so we let Watson stay out and keep working. Boston got a garbage-time run back in the ninth with two outs, but Watson struck out Johnny Hopp looking as we won this one 8-2. Kramer improved to 2-1 with a 4.29 ERA, lasting six innings with four hits, three walks, five strikeouts and an earned run, and Watson finished his first bullpen apperance with four hits, a walk, two strikeouts and an earned run in three innings, picking up a save in the process as he threw 47 pitches and earned a 3.00 ERA. We outhit Boston 13-8, led by Kramer, who in addition to his six solid innings on the mound finished with three hits and two runs batted in, while Wally Judnich added two hits, two runs and two RBIs.

May 6, 1947: Fred Sanford (0-1, 3.80 ERA, 21.1 IP, 9 K, 1.22 WHIP) got his start in game three against the Red Sox after our day to rest, challenging Red Sox starter Dave Ferriss (0-2, 7.45 ERA, 19.1 IP, 9 K, 2.22 WHIP) as Boston tries to find a way, ANY way, to eke out a win. They drew first blood in the top of the first with an RBI single from Frank McCormick, but this game was a rout pretty much from the moment they started pitching ... Jackie Robinson led off with a solo homer, Wally Judnich hit a three-run triple and then scored off a groundout by Vaughn, and with the bases loaded Harry Walker hit an RBI single that scored two more to give us a huge 7-1 lead after just one inning. Ferriss stayed out for a couple clean innings, but we added on with an RBI single from Judnich in the fourth, Boston not scoring again until Dom Dimaggio hit a sac-fly in the top of the sixth to cut our lead back to six. Robinson hit a sac-fly to get that run back in the bottom of the seventh, Sam Zoldak taking the ball in the eighth and easing us through the finish of a 9-3 victory. Sanford improved to 1-1 with a 3.49 ERA, allowing just six hits and three walks with a three strikeouts and two earned runs, and we outhit Boston just 11-9, though we had a double, a triple and a homer that helped create quick separation. Wally Judnich led the way with three hits, a run and four RBIs, and he’s now batting .400 through his first 50 at-bats!

We’re going to host the Philadelphia Athletics (12-9) for a pair of games over the next two days, and they trail us by two games with New York (12-10) sitting two and a half back while Cleveland (10-9) and Washington (11-10) are three out. This will be our first time facing the A’s, who are coming off a three-game losing streak against the White Sox, who are now a game up on the Red Sox who have lost seven straight. Our +37 run differential leads both leagues by a wide margin, but Philly has the best record in one-run games outside ours in the American League,so we’re expecting to get plenty of fight from them.

May 7, 1947: Tom Seats (4-0, 2.17 ERA, 29.0 IP, 10 K, 1.34 WHIP) has been surprisingly strong all year from the #4 spot in our rotation, the 36-year-old proving to have great control over his pitches. Today he took on Ted Alexander (2-1, 3.00 ERA, 27.0 IP, 8 K, 1.52 WHIP), and we gave him a lead from the bottom of the first when a Vern Stephens RBI double gave us a 1-0 advantage. But Philly got it back quickly thanks to a Buddy Rosar RBI single in the top of the second, and they hit Seats hard in the third, when George Kell hit a three-run homer to put Philly ahead 4-1. Our bats took the night off from there, and we trailed 5-1 when Amos Watson took the ball in the top of the seventh, and Jack Kramer took over in the ninth with nothing changed. But we showed signs of life in the bottom of the inning, loading the bases with one out, and with two outs Kramer himself walked in a run to get us back within three, with Robinson coming up with his power bat. They were having none of that, however, walking him on five pitches to get us within two ... but Harry Walker struck out swinging and we fell to the A’s by a 5-3 margin. Seats took his first loss, falling to 4-1 with a 3.09 ERA, lasting six innings with eight hits and a strikeout, but he gave up all five of our runs doing it. Philly outhit us 9-4, and though we had six walks while our pitching gave up no such free passes, it wasn’t enough to get us the win. Vern Stephens led the way with a hit, a walk, a run and an RBI.
 
May 8, 1947: Diomedes Olivo (2-2, 3.28 ERA, 35.2 IP, 17 K, 1.12 WHIP) started against Murry Dickson (1-1, 3.92 ERA, 20.2 IP, 7 K, 1.60 WHIP) in the second game of the two-game set, and while he’s pitched three complete games and had four quality starts, Olivo comes into this one after his extreme letdown against Washington, so we wanted to see him get control on the mound quickly. Unfortunately, the A’s got the lead quickly in the top of the second off a pair of groundouts by Pete Suder and Buddy Rosar, but Olivo kept grinding inning after inning, until we finally got on the board ourselves, Wally Judnich scoring off a passed ball in the bottom of the seventh to get within a run. In the bottom of the ninth, on one out, Vern Stephens picked up just the fifth hit of the game for us and got on base, and Wally Judnich walked him into scoring position just moments later, bringing our fans to their feet. But we got our second out when Vern Stephens was caught stealing third on a run and hit, Arky Vaughn swinging and missing hard, and Vaughn popped up hard to center moments later to end our chances as we lost another tough one 2-1. Olivo fell to 2-3 despite a complete game four-hitter, with a walk, two strikeouts and the two earned runs against him. We outhit the A’s 5-4, out-walking them 3-1, but it wasn’t enough as we stranded too many of our runners (the caught stealing by Stephens proved quite costly). Robinson led the way with two hits, but got nowhere.

We dropped into second, tied with the A’s now at 14-9, with three games left in this homestand as Cleveland (10-11, 3 GB) comes into town sitting in fifth place. We really need a good stretch of games from this series, because we’ll be on the road for the remainder of the month, including two games in New York, three against Boston, three in Philly, one against Washington, three against Cleveland, two against the White Sox and a doubleheader on the 31st against Detroit. And none of them are going to give us easy turns on their fields.