[jksander]

May 4, 1916: The Browns lost their game against Chicago yesterday 5-2, snapping their win streak as they head on the road for 22 consecutive road games, so we now have the longest streak in the land and a chance to fight our way into first place if we can keep it going. We took the lead quickly in the bottom of the first, scoring off a Rube Oldring single and a groundout by Lew Malone to quickly go up 2-0, and Gene Packard dominated their lineup repeatedly with his strong pitching performance ... both pitchers in fact did a great job tying up the batters, with just four hits between our teams in the first seven innings. But Washington woke up big time in the top of the eighth, tying the game on a two-run single by Danny Moeller after Bill Morrisette took over with one out earlier in the inning. Jack Nabors took over the tied game in the top of the ninth, getting three quick outs, but for the first time all year we found ourselves having to play extra innings. With two outs in the top of the 10th, a passed ball allowed Washington to take the lead as Henri Rondeau scored the go-ahead. And we’d run out of magic offensively, as none of our hitters could get us over the hump in the bottom of the inning. Our streak came to a close with a 3-2 10th inning loss. Packard lasted 7.1 innings with three hits, two walks, two strikeouts and an earned run ... he threw 117 pitches, but our manager’s going to take heat over pulling him for Morrisette, who blew the save with a hit, two walks and a run while only getting two outs. Nabors took the loss, pitching two innings with a hit, a walk and an unearned run. But Washington outhit us 5-3, and it was our second game finding it difficult to sustain rallies. Yesterday we lucked into the win against New York, but tonight it wasn’t happening, though Oldring led us with the RBI that originally put us into the lead.

May 5, 1916: We hit them back hard in the bottom of the third in this afternoon’s game, scoring off a Dickey Kerr RBI single and then adding on when Jimmy Walsh reached safely via an E2 error, Kerr scoring from third. Wally Schang reached on an E8 error that then let Jimmy Walsh score, and Stuffy McInniss added another run when he grounded out to score Wally Schang from third. With the 4-0 lead in our hands, we were already firmly in control, but a five-run inning in the fourth turned this into a rout! Dickey Kerr went on to complete the game, a five-hit 9-0 shutout victory, getting us nicely back on track after yesterday’s disappointment. He walked three and struck out a pair, thowing 138 pitches in a dominating performance as he earned his first major league win, our team outhitting theirs 11-5 behind a balanced hitting attack. Schang had two hits, two runs and two RBIs, while leadoff man Jimmy Walsh added a hit, two runs and two RBIs. Strunk and Mowrey added two hits each with a run, and Alex McCarthy put up a hit and two runs on the ground.

May 6, 1916: Today we took the lead again in the bottom of the first with an RBI single by Stuffy McInnis, but Washington quickly replied with a top-of-the-second RBI single by John Henry to stay in the game. Alex McCarthy hit an RBI triple in the bottom of the inning to retake the lead, and Bullet Joe Bush held tough the rest of the way as he completed the game to win 2-1! It was his first win, improving our top starter to a 1-3 record with a 2.72 ERA, a four-hit game with four walks, three strikeouts and one unearned run. We outhit the Senators 6-4, led by Mike Mowrey with two this and a run scored, while McInnis had a hit and an RBI.

May 8, 1916: It’s absolutely incredible, we can say we’re in first place in the American League! Our 13-9 record has us tied in the standings with St. Louis, who are now sitting at 14-10 as our two teams have gone on similar tears to flip this league onto its head. Cleveland, however, has won four in a row, and now they, at 10-14, are now tied with Boston (9-13) in last place ... so the entire eight-team league is within four games of each other. Nobody should feel safe or confident of their dominance at this point in the season.

But we’ve won nine of our last ten games, so we’ve certainly earned this change of fortunes, along with the right to at least feel we can compete day in and day out. In today’s final game of the series against Washington we took the lead in the bottom of the second off a groundout by Mike Mowrey, and in the bottom of the fourth we added on with an RBI single by Alex McCarthy, a third run soon scoring off a passed ball to give us a 3-0 advantage going into the fifth. Three more runs scored for us in the bottom of the sixth, giving Pedro Dibut a comfortable lead, and even though Washington got a pair back in the ninth inning, it was too little too late as we stomped them 8-2. Dibut didn’t get a complete game, pitching 8.1 innings with four hits, four strikeouts and two unearned runs, but he still improved to 4-2 with a 1.59 ERA through 45.1 innings over his first seven starts. We outhit them 11-6, led by Mowrey who had two hits, a run and two RBIs, and we were able to improve to 6-2 against them at this early point in the season.

Next up we’ll face Detroit (12-12) for four games, putting our league-leading 14-9 record to the test.