Pitching leaderboards in the National League through the games of Tuesday, 15 July . . .
1919 NL - Batting Leaders through 15 July
Offensive statistical leaders in the National League through the games of Tuesday, 15 July . . .
1919 NL - Games of Tuesday, 15 July
Cubs 2, Braves 1: Each club could manage only eight hits but, as has so often happened in his nine-year big-league career, Pete Alexander was slightly better when the chips were on the line and Chicago won a nail-biter in Boston. Two lapses in concentration were all it took to doom the Braves - in the 3rd, a two-out error by Tony Boeckel set the table for Charlie Hollocher's RBI hit and, in the 4th, Hugh McQuillan hit leadoff hitter Fred Merkle with a pitch to start the ball rolling towards Les Mann's run-scoring single three batters later. McQuillan (3-2) was excellent after that, allowing only four Cubs to reach over the final five innings, but it was already too late with "Old Pete" toeing the rubber on the opposite side. Boston got just one hit against him in the first three innings, and didn't really threaten seriously until the 7th when Boeckel singled with one out and Hank Gowdy tripled two batters later to cut the Chicago lead to 2-1. But McQuillan popped out to leave the potential tying run 90 feet shy and Boston didn't get a whiff of hope again until they had poked a pair of singles with two outs in the bottom of the 9th; pinch-hitter Johnny Rawlings was asked to be the hero, but he was no match for the 200-game winner, who forced him to hit a lazy fly ball to center field which was pocketed by Lee Magee for the final out. Alexander held the Braves to 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position by pitching to contact (one walk, two strikeouts) and recording fourteen ground-ball outs (retiring eleven of the first fifteen in that fashion). Magee had two hits to lead the Cubs, while Gowdy had three base knocks for Boston. [box]
1919 NL - Games of Monday, 14 July
Braves 1, Cubs 0: A scintillating pitchers' duel at Braves Field was decided in favor of the home nine when Rabbit Maranville's slow ground ball pushed across a run in the bottom of the 7th inning. Safe hits were in short supply in the early going, as Max Flack led off the game with a single and Chicago wouldn't record another base hit until the 5th, and Boston only had four of their own through five. Both sides had the makings of a rally erased by double plays, the Cubs seeing Fred Merkle's line drive turned into two outs by Maranville with two on in the 1st and Buck Herzog bouncing into a 463 with two Robins aboard in the 3rd. The home team got two on with one out in the 6th, but Hippo Vaughn (8-10) escaped on two ground ball outs; he would not fare as well in the 7th. Red Smith and Hank Gowdy began the inning with singles and Al Demaree bunted them both into scoring position; Brooklyn pulled the infield in close, but Marnaville hit one off the end of the bat that got past the mound and, by the time shortstop Charlie Hollcher could glove the ball with the runners going at the crack of the bat, Smith was nearly home and he was forced to take the out at first base. Now staked to the slimmest of leads, Demaree (7-4) got to work - he wobbled a bit in the 8th, allowing two men to reach with one out before escaping via two weak grounders back to the mound, and a leadoff error in the 9th came to nought when he ended the game by inducing two can-of-corn fly balls to center. Lee Magee of the Cubs and Jim Thorpe of the Braves were the only players to walk off the field with more than one base hit. [box]
1919 NL - Games of Sunday, 13 July
Giants 15, Pirates 6: New York extracted equal measure in response to their pummeling at the hand of Pittsburgh yesterday afternoon, scoring fifteen times including eleven in the first two innings. Honors were settled quite quickly at Coogan's Bluff, as the luckless Earl Hamilton (3-13) simply could not find a way to navigate the Giants' lineup. After retiring the first batter in the bottom of the 1st, he allowed six of the next seven to reach safely, throwing in a balk for the sake of completeness, as New York scored five times in their first at-bat of the game with Mike Gonzalez providing a two-run single. And it wouldn't get any easier for Hamilton the next time the home team picked up the bats - the leadoff hitter hit a sharp one back to the box which the little left-hander fielded well but then threw over the head of the first baseman for a two-base error, and that was almost the highlight of the inning for the Pirate hurler. Now completely unsettled, he walked Ross Youngs and then served up a soft toss which Art Fletcher hit out of the yard (5) for three runs, and the next three Giants singled. Before he had managed to retire the tenth and final batter of the frame, the score was 11-0 in favor of McGraw's men and the rest of the day was to be played for show only. New York added four more runs in the 5th, and Pittsburgh did manage some damage against Rube Benton (6-7), but the Giant moundsman was clearly pitching to the score and went the distance despite being allowing eleven safe hits. Fletcher scored three times and drove in four, Gonzalez had a big day at the plate with three hits, and Billy Southworth had three hits and three RBI in support of the losing cause. [box]
1919 NL - Games of Saturday, 12 July
Pirates 11, Giants 2: Casey Stengel homered twice to highlight a four-hit day as Pittsburgh crushed New York at Brush Stadium. The Pirate right-fielder singled, stole a base, and scored in a three-run 1st inning that got the visitors off and running, and then homered to lead off the 4th after the Giants had pulled back a pair in the 2nd with the help of George Cutshaw's error. He again led off the inning in the 5th with a circuit clout (his third of the campaign) and this blow was the opening shot of a four-run frame that put Pittsburgh in complete control; the coup de grâce was a two-out, three-run home run by Walter Schmidt (1) which was the final straw for Fred Toney (3-7). Casey singled in another run in the 7th as the Pirates kept the scoreboard ticking over against the New York relief corps. Wilbur Cooper (11-3) was outstanding on the hill for Pittsburgh, scattering seven hits and three walks, while fanning six Giants to join the League leaders in victories. [box]
1919 NL - Games of Friday, 11 July
Braves 5, Reds 0: Ray Keating pitched nine shutout innings to complete a double-header whitewash of the League leaders at Braves Field and cap a surprising series in which the Braves beat Cincinnati in four straight contests. The game was scoreless for three innings before Boston began to chip away at Reds starter Hod Eller (10-6). Single runs in each of the next five Brave at-bats, three of those driven home by the hot bat of Joe Riggert (including his fifth home run of the season), pushed Boston into the lead and gradually pulled them away from the visitors. Meanwhile, the suddenly-anemic Reds batting attack was found without answers yet again; they put two men on in the 1st and again in the 7th, but failed to dent the scoreboard on either occasion as Keating (3-2) made the big pitch on the very few occasions where Cincinnati demanded it of him. The Niagara University product allowed just two hits over the final seven innings and was in complete command the entire way, as the Reds finished the twinbill with an aggregate batting line of .167/.183/.231 that included an 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. Riggert's recent hot stretch has seen him wallop the ball at a .375 clip with two triples, three homers and eight RBI over his last nine games. [box]
1919 NL - Games of Wednesday, 9 July
Pirates 6, Robins 4: Billy Southworth put on a spectacular display of skill and athleticism at Ebbets Field today, striking five base hits and stealing four bases to propel Pittsburgh to a fifteen-inning win over Brooklyn. There was no hint early of the big day coming when Southworth popped out in the 1st, his teammates scoring nonetheless on a single, sacrifice and throwing error by Pete Kilduff. But Kilduff singled home the tying run for the home team in the 2nd, and it was a 3-3 game before Southworth turned on the jets in the 8th. He led off with a base hit, stole second and third, and scored one out later when he beat Ed Konetchy's throw home on a two-hopper to first off the bat of Fritz Mollwitz. But Babe Adams allowed three singles in the bottom of the 9th as the Robins forced extra innings and the two starters kept putting up zeroes through thirteen innings; the Pirates had the only real threat as a wild pitch moved a runner to third base with two gone in the 12th but Southworth, already with four hits in his back pocket, could only fly harmlessly to right. In the top of the 15th, Billy led off with a single, stole second base for the third time of the afternoon, and trotted home when George Cutshaw ripped a home run (2) just inside the left-field foul pole off of Al Mamaux (7-2). Bill Evans (1-1) closed it out with the second of two scoreless innings of relief. The Pirates ran the Robins ragged with nine steals in thirteen attempts and four Brooklyn errors cost them two important runs. [box]
1919 NL - Games of Tuesday, 8 July
Reds 6, Braves 5: Cincinnati scored four runs in the 8th inning to take the lead, and Dolf Luque came off the bench to turn Boston aside on a single pitch with the help of a spectacular game-ending defensive play by Heinie Groh. A walk and a Morrie Rath error cleared a path for the Braves to score twice in the bottom of the 4th to take a 3-1 lead, and the starters held fast until Jimmy Ring took matters into his own hands with the bat, knocking an RBI triple with two outs in the 7th. Then in the next inning Dick Rudolph (7-5) faltered badly while trying to protect the one-run lead, allowing two singles to start the stanza and then watching Tony Boeckel's bobble turn the bases Red with no one yet retired. He got the struggling Greasy Neale (.197) to pop up on the infield for the first out, but Larry Kopf lined a single to right for one run and Rub Bressler followed with a looping fly to center which he legged into two bases while two Cincinnati runs crossed the plate. A sacrifice fly by Ivey Wingo made it 6-3 and it seemed as if Ring would have no trouble seeing out the final six outs for the visitors, but Boston made it clear immediately that they had other ideas. Joe Riggert, who had already homered for the Braves, led off the home 8th with a triple and Johnny Rawlings immediately singled him home; when Ring walked Ray Powell to place the tying runs upon the bases with no one out, Pat Moran began to pace nervously in front of the Cincinnati bench. But Ring (4-2) recovered to fan two of the next three men, and got the first out of the 9th before he began to lose the plot again. Hank Gowdy and PH Red Smith singled, then Riggert did the same to score Gowdy and make it a one-run game with the tying run at third base. Moran had seen enough at this point, and asked Luque to remove his sweater and take Ring's place on the hill. His warmup heaves were barely over before the game was as well - his first pitch to Johnny Rawlings was hit on a line to the lunging Heinie Groh, who snared the ball and the dove to touch third base with his mitt before Smith could get back to the bag safely, for a game-ending twin-killing. Riggert racked up eight total bases, plus a walk, while Rath, Groh and Jake Daubert each had two hits for the Reds. [box]
1919 NL - Games of Monday, 7 July
Giants 19, Phillies 7: New York pounded the beleaguered Philadelphia pitching staff for ten runs in the 6th inning and kept on scoring until the final out to bury the home team by a score of 19-7. The Phillies took a fleeting 1st-inning lead on Doug Baird's two-run homer (5), but the Giants got four in the 2nd with the help of two Phillie errors and led 5-2 when they came to bat against Gene Packard (3-9) in the 6th. A single and another error put two men on with one away, and then the next nine Giants reached base safely (six singles, three walks) against Packard and Frank Woodward as all nine positions in the NY lineup scored at least one run in the inning. Philadelphia put up a token resistance in the late innings, helped by Fred Luderus' two-run homer (2), but the Giants kept piling on as well with four more in the 9th. All of these were unearned thanks to Irish Meusel's muffed fly ball to start the inning; the Phils committed six errors in total, leading to a total of eight unearned runs. Every single member of the New York lineup had at least one hit, one run scored and one run batted in, and pitcher Jesse Barnes (11-3) knocked out four base hits, scored four times and drove home a pair while pitching a complete game. [box]
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