May 13, 1915
Phillies vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Athletics @ St. Louis Browns
The Phillies hoped to carry the momentum of the victory on
Tuesday into their second game of the series against the Pirates. Bob Harmon was Pittsburgh’s pitcher. He was not the kind of twirler to induce fear
in the hearts of batters, what with his 3.96 ERA and 1.40 WHIP coming into the
game. In his previous five games, Harmon
only managed to hold his opponent below three earned runs once. The Phillies must have been salivating watching
him warm up, thinking this could be their chance to finally break out of this
team-wide slump they’ve been mired in for two weeks. Even without Fred Luderus and Bill Killefer,
Philadelphia still looked to be able to put up ample enough runs for Al Demaree
to get his second win of the season.
The big question was what version of Al Demaree was going to
show up to the Baker Bowl today. There
was the Good Al, the one that shutout the Giants in mid-April; and then there
was the Bad Al that was rocked for 12 hits and seven runs by Brooklyn only a
few weeks ago. Luckily, it was Good Al
that got through the first with no damage done.
In the second, though, Bad Al decided to have his turn, though his
defense certainly deserves some of the blame for what transpired. After already allowing Honus Wagner to score,
Demaree pitched himself into a first and third, one out situation with the
pitcher Harmon at the plate. Demaree
thought he caught Pirates’ catcher Bobby Schang napping in his lead off first
and threw over just as the runner broke for second base. It should have been an easy pick off. Possum Whitted, the hero of the early season
and replacement for Luderus at first, was out of position and made a bad throw
to second, allowing Schang to slide in safely.
Seeing a chance, Wally Gerber attempted to score from third while the
Phillies were busy with Schang. Bert
Niehoff fired home to get Gerber, but his throw was 10 feet up the line and the
Pirates had a 2-0 lead. Demaree calmed
down a bit to get Harmon for the second out.
The next batter, Max Carey, lifted a high pop to center field that Dode
Paskert took his sweet time going after.
Halfway there Paskert realized he didn’t have quite the beat it that he thought he did and had to completely lay out to even get close to the
ball, which ricocheted off his glove and bounded away, allowing Schang to make
the score 3-0. But, after this one bad
inning, Good Al came back and shut the Pirates down for the rest of the game.
The offense hit Harmon around the whole day, but as often
happens in slumps, there never seemed to be enough hits strung together to
really stick it to him. Gavvy Cravath
hit a home run, his fourth on the year, but the Phillies managed no more runs
because, even with seven hits and three walks, they left six men on base. Possum Whitted, the man that seemed to knock
in every run in the beginning of the season, was hitting .214/.421/.214 since
Fred Luderus went down with injury a week ago.
But it wasn’t just Possum that was blowing it on offense, the entire
team was severely down since the calendar turned to May. It’s hard to score runs when the team batting
average is .219, on-base percentage is .288, and OPS is .603, even with great
pitching. Demaree was saddled with the
loss today, but it wasn’t an accurate representation of how the game was lost. Yes, he pitched poorly in one inning, but bad
throws and dropped pop ups behind him also doomed the team.[1]
Luckily for the Phillies the Dodgers took care of the Cubs
two days in a row so the lead on Chicago for first place remained a game. Even so, there was much that needed to be
addressed. The problems exhibited by the
club could no longer be ignored or tossed aside as apparitions. For two weeks the team played the best ball
in the country against great opponents, piling up 11 wins in 12 games. Since then, two weeks had passed and they
were playing some of the worst ball in the country against the worst
teams. They were 3-7 in the last 10
games, which was only a smidge better than the lowly Athletics had played this
season to date. In fact, the A’s were
actually better than the Phillies in
their last 10 games, going 4-6. This
upcoming week would shine a light on what kind of club the Phillies were. Since every player on the team was slumping
simultaneously, there was a good chance the hitters would also break out at the
same time, resulting in runs and wins.
Or, this team could be the same tease the Phillies were every year,
always showing promise before failing the final test that would prove them
worthy of greatness. For now, much like
they had to do for Al Demaree, the fans would bite their nails and wait
to see if the Good Phillies or the Bad Phillies showed up to the park each day
until one proved to be the true version of this team.
[1]
“Batting Slump Of Phillies May Soon Cost League Lead,” Evening Ledger, May 14, 2015, accessed May 12, 2015, http://1.usa.gov/1K4smBS.
No comments:
Post a Comment