"HITTING shoes" for both the Dodgers and Giants on Thursday, April 13, 1962: in Los Angeles, starter
Stan Williams came up wild (and possibly woolly), walking four in 1 2/3 innings, setting the tone for a most erratic season that would result in his being traded to the Yankees after the '62 season. (Forgotten fact: Williams would face his former teammates in the 1963 World Series, entering Game One in the sixth inning in relief of
Whitey Ford. While
Sandy Koufax slashed through the Yankee lineup en route to a then-record 15 strikeouts, Williams got a measure of personal revenge by shutting out the Dodgers for three innings, fanning five. Williams and Koufax were the two Dodger pitchers with 200+ strikeouts in 1961, but their careers then diverged rather dramatically...)
Young lefty Pete Richert took over for Williams in the second, and had a spectacular outing in relief, striking out seven in 3 1/3 innings (including the first six batters he faced); the Dodgers, down 4-0 in the bottom of the fifth, proceeded to score seven runs in the fifth, netting Richert a win in his first big league appearance. (Richert would struggle in subsequent appearances, however, and in May would be sent back to the minors until August, when he was recalled as the Dodgers tried to fill the vacancy in their starting rotation due to Koufax' famous finger injury.)
The Dodgers amassed 16 hits (three each for
Johnny Roseboro and
Willie Davis) as they lumbered their way to an 11-7 win. The Reds' bespectacled shortstop
Eddie Kasko had a busy but mixed-signal night: two hits, three RBI--and two errors, both in the fateful fifth inning.
IN San Francisco, the Giants did not keep their fans in suspense with respect to the outcome of the game, as another shortstop--the first of many light-hitting types they'd employ at the position, Jose Pagan--slammed a bases-loaded triple to cap a four-run first. (With the strike zone change in 1963, Pagan would find it impossible to keep his OPS above .600, though he did stage an offensive recovery after a trade to the Pirates--and the return of the strike zone to pre-1962 levels at the end of the decade.)
Right-hander Jack Sanford sailed into the eighth inning with a 8-0 lead, but the right-hander lost the bubble quickly, loading the bases and then surrendering a grand slam to Joe Adcock. The crafty, reliable Stu Miller replaced him and put the Braves back to sleep, cementing an 8-4 Giants win--completing a series sweep.
The chart at right shows the starting lineups for the Giants and the Dodgers on April 12, along with the number of games that the players in those lineups would play in those batting order positions over the course of the season. While both teams had far from set lineups/batting orders, it's clear that the Dodgers had many more changes ahead of them.
Tommy Davis, making his first start of the season, would soon drop from the third slot to cleanup, as manager
Walt Alston curtailed the slumping
Wally Moon's playing time and turned over right field to
Frank Howard (who would ultimately lead the team in HRs that year).
Willie Davis, starting out white-hot in the #8 slot, would be moved into the #3 slot, where he would hit the most homers (21) that he'd ever hit in any year thereafter.
For the Giants, the major uncertainty was exactly where manager Al Dark would bat third baseman Jim Davenport, who would bat #6 and #7 more than twice as often as he did in the #8 slot. As young catcher Tom Haller emerged (in an odd platoon of two lefty hitters), Ed Bailey would shift downward in the batting order. But the top of the Giants' lineup was relatively stable, as you can see.
SEASON RECORDS: SFG 3-0, LAD 2-1
