60 YEARS AGO/25: MAYS IS FIRST TO TEN HRS ON HIS BIRTHDAY

On Sunday, May 6, 1962 in Wrigley Field, Willie Mays wasted no time in celebrating his 31st birthday: he hit a two-run homer in the first inning to jump-start the Giants. It was the tenth of the year for Willie, who'd started slowly but was now in high gear: he went 3-for-4 in the game to boost his season BA over .300 for the first time. He also took over the home run lead in MLB, moving ahead of Vada Pinson and AL leader Leon Wagner, who each had nine. 

Harvey Kuenn, out of the lineup with a knee strain for more than a week, returned and hit his first homer of the year in the third inning. With Kuenn back in the swing of things, the Giants had a batting order where seven of their eight hitters had BAs above .300. (That wouldn't last, but it reveals to us just how hot a hitting team they were in the early part of the '62 season.)

The Giants put the game away in the top of the sixth, scoring four times to make the score 7-1. The big blow in the inning was a two-run single from Manny Mota, who was envisioned as a jack-of-all-trades by Al Dark, who gave him his first start at third base in this game. (Though Manny seemed to acquit himself reasonably well at third, he wound up only starting six games there in his career, with only 15 lifetime games at the hot corner.)

Billy O'Dell worked through a Cubs rally in the eighth and would up with a complete game win, running his record to 4-0. Final score: Giants 7, Cubs 3.

IN PITTSBURGH, rain washed out the game between the Dodgers and the Pirates. The game was rescheduled for June 5th.

SEASON RECORDS: SFG 20-6, LAD 15-10.

NOTE: For a look back at a birthday tribute to Willie Mays that we ran here eleven years ago, go here. 

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A quick trip back to the present day as we update the situation with the Cincinnati Reds. Three more losses to the Brewers in Milwaukee pushed their losing streak to nine and their overall season record to 3-22, putting them in a tie with the 2003 Detroit Tigers for the second worst start in MLB history.

The Reds' touted pitching prospect Hunter Greene had a very rough day on Cinco de Mayo, managing to give up (that's right) FIVE homers to the Brewers. 22 year old Greene is now 1-4 with an ERA of 8.71 and has given up ten homers in 20.2 IP.

The Reds split their opening four-game series with the Atlanta Braves, but have gone 1-20 since then. There's a possible respite in all that coming this weekend, as the Reds return home to face the Pittsburgh Pirates (10-14), where they'll match up against three Pirates' starting pitchers with a collective 0-9 record thus far in '22.

The Reds' companions in catastrophic 25-game season start-ups, the '88 O's and the '03 Tigers, combined to win 97 games in those years. Yes, that's a combined total. They lost 226. Break all that in half and the '22 Reds are staring down a projected 48-114 season mark. Stay tuned...

[UPDATE: The Reds' game with the Pirates was rained out this evening, as part of a storm front in the Midwest and East that caused six games to be postponed. The game has been rescheduled until early July.]