Braves 2, Pirates 1: Joe Kelly ripped an RBI double in the bottom of the 10th inning to cap a late comeback for the home team at Braves Field, on a day when the hurlers had the upper hand. Pittsburgh got an early lead when light-hitting Billy Zitzmann lined one under the glove of a diving Joe Riggert in center field and ran all the way to third base to lead off the 3rd inning, and scored on Walter Schmidt's ground ball to first base. And so the game stood well into the afternoon, as Ray Keating and Bill Evans filled the linescore with goose eggs - Keating retired eleven Pirates in order at one point, while Evans escaped a leadoff Walter Holke triple in the 4th unscathed. With the Braves running low on outs, Red Smith drew a bases on balls off of Evans with one away in the 8th and then another .200 hitter, catcher Art Wilson, lifted one over the head of Zitzmann in left that rattled off the wall and into deep LCF. Smith scored, Wilson steamed into third with the game's third three-base hit, and the Braves were 90 feet away from taking the lead with only one out. But Evans got Joe Kelly to pop into shallow right field, holding Wilson at third, and then forced Keating to bounce back to the box for the third out. Pittsburgh got runners to second and third with one out in the top of the 9th, but suffocated the threat by handling Fritz Mollwitz's grounder to short with the infield pulled close and then getting Tony Boeckel to watch a called third strike. Boston likewise could not score despite getting two men on in the bottom of the 9th and it was on to extra innings. In the last of the 10th, Smith greeted new pitcher Earl Hamilton with a base hit, and was bunted to second by Wilson. That left it up to Kelly, 0-for-3 on the day, and he lined one between the center- and right-fielders and Smith rounded third and headed home with the walk-off run. [box]
1919 NL - Games of Friday, 16 May
Braves 8, Cardinals 7: Five combined runs in the 11th inning made for a crazy end to an eventful affair at Braves Field this afternoon. The home team took a 3-1 lead in the 3rd behind a triple from Rabbit Maranville and a two-run double off the bat of Joe Riggert. This edge didn't last long, though, as St. Louis - who had been struggling for runs thus far this season - scored twice in each of the 5th and 6th innings (two-RBI hits from Walton Cruise and pitcher Oscar Tuero) to take back the lead. But Boston answered with two in their half of the 6th to tie, as a pinch-hit RBI double by Johnny Rawlings and a run-scoring groundout leveled the game at five runs each. The bats then went suddenly quiet, with the teams combining for a total of three hits over the next four innings, but this turned out to be just the calm before the 11th-inning storm. The Cards put a man on second base with two away in the top of the inning and manager George Stallings decided not to pitch to Rogers Hornsby, but instead to provide him with a free pass to first base. The percentage play backfired when PH Austin McHenry followed with a single that scored one run, and Gene Paulette then did the same to give the visitors a two-run cushion to take into the bottom of the inning. Bill Sherdel, who had tossed three perfect innings of relief to this point, got the first out but Maranville then doubled and Buck Herzog singled to put the tying runs aboard. A wild pitch scored one of them and Red Smith's single another, as Sherdel began to fall apart; a ground out got STL to within one out of the finish line, but Art Wilson (hitting only .191 on the season) blooped a liner into left field that allowed Ray Powell to sprint home with the winning run. [box]
1919 NL - Games of Thursday, 15 May
Robins 6, Reds 4: Just when it looked as if Cincinnati might have finally found the upper hand in this early-season tussle between the two best teams in the National League, the Robins snatched the game away with a four-run 8th inning rally. With the score 4-2 in favor of the Reds, and one out and no one on base in the Brooklyn half of the 8th inning, it looked as if the visitors would claw back one of the games in the standings which they had lost to Brooklyn earlier in the series. But three straight singles loaded the bases and, after Ed Konetchy fanned for the second out, Hod Eller could not find the third. Pinch-hitter Jimmy Johnston poked a two-run single to tie the score and catcher Ernie Krueger, who had homered in the 7th, drove a three-base hit to the wall to score two more and send the Robins into the lead. Al Mamaux finished off the Reds in the top of the 9th for Brooklyn's third straight win. In addition to Krueger's hitting heroics, he gunned down three Reds attempting to steal. [box]
1919 NL - Games of Wednesday, 14 May
Pirates 11, Phillies 4: Pittsburgh scored seven times in the first extra inning to stun Philadelphia at the Baker Bowl. The Phillies had scored three times in the 6th inning to take a 4-2 lead, but the Pirates cut the deficit in half in the 8th on a pair of singles and a fielder's choice and then manufactured the game-tying run in the 9th on a single, stolen base, sacrifice and wild pitch. In the 10th, the suspense was over fairly quickly as three of the first four Pirates reached base, and Vic Saier and Billy Zitzmann delivered two-run singles for two of PIT's seven safeties in the inning. Carson Bigbee finished with four hits, two runs, a double and a stolen base for the winners. [box]
1919 NL - Games of Tuesday, 13 May
Robins 4, Reds 3: Zack Wheat homered with two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning to put an exclamation point on a tense battle between the League's top two teams. When the clubs scored in each of the first three half-innings, it looked as if it might be one of those "last man to bat wins" affairs - it turned out that it was, but not because the runs kept coming. Ray Fisher and Jeff Pfeffer steadied the ships, and in fact ran the offenses aground, after the 4th inning with Cincinnati clinging to a 3-2 lead. Brooklyn just could not find a way to land the telling blow against Fisher, leaving the tying run in scoring position in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th innings. In the 9th, however, Ivy Olson led off with a single and moved to second on Lee Magee's sacrifice; Tommy Griffith skied to center, and Wheat then added another thirty feet or so to that drive to put the ball and the game out of reach of the Reds, and to put the Robins atop the National League. [box]
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