60 YEARS AGO/24: EIGHT IS NOT ENOUGH

In 1962, MLB teams that scored exactly eight runs in a game won nearly 85% of the time (144-26, .847). That's pretty much dead on with the winning percentage for all games since 1901 in which a team scored exactly eight runs (.849).

But on this day (Saturday, May 5) eight was not enough for the Giants, and their ten-game winning streak came to an unceremonious end at Wrigley Field that day. Very poor pitching contributed to this game getting away from the Giants three times: first, in the fourth inning when "young Gaylord Perry" blew a 3-1 lead, allowing the Cubs to take a 4-3 lead. 

The Giants got the lead back with three in the fifth, thanks largely to a two-run triple from the suddenly rediscovered Willie McCovey, and went back out in front 6-4, but the Cubs see-sawed ahead in the bottom of the inning when that future bank vice president Bob Will delivered a two-run pinch-hit single to make the score 7-6.

In the sixth Ed Bailey hit a two-run homer to put the Giants back on top 8-7, but that's where the merry-go-round came to a halt. In the bottom half of that same inning, Ernie Banks' sac fly knotted the score, and in the seventh Billy Williams hit his second homer of the day, and the score was suddenly 11-8. Rookie Giants reliever Jim Duffalo (who'd been mostly a starter in the minors) gave up another homer to Banks in the eighth, ensuring that his first major league decision was not accompanied with a wiggily letter. Final score: Cubs 12, Giants 8.

CINCO DE MAYO '62 in Pittsburgh featured a key milestone for the Dodgers: this was the day that manager Walt Alston installed Willie Davis in the #3 slot of the batting order, where he'd remain for the rest of the season. That move, along with the imminent performance uptick from Maury Wills (hitting only .204 at this point), would stabilize L.A.'s offense and permit the Dodgers to post a 58-27 record from May 1st to the end of July.

The Dodgers scored five in the second, triggered by Doug Camilli's fourth consecutive hit, a two-run single. Camilli would make it 5-for-5 to start the season with a two-run homer in the third. (He would finally make an out in the sixth inning.) Starting pitcher Don Drysdale (4-1 on the year) held the Pirates at bay, surrendering only five hits in a complete game victory, and keeping his batting average at .500 with two hits and two RBI.

The Dodgers amassed fifteen hits, seven of them from the soon-to-be back-to-back Davis boys--Willie with three hits on this day, Tommy with four (including a double and a home run). Final score: Dodgers 10, Pirates 1.

SEASON RECORDS: SFG 19-6, LA 15-10.