June 13, 1962 brought the Giants down to earth again: they were shut down by the Reds'
Bob Purkey, who ran his season record to 11-1 with a brilliant three-hit shutout.
Willie Mays tried to rattle Purkey in the first by stealing second and third after drawing a walk, but
Felipe Alou popped out to end the inning (and the only real scoring threat the Giants had the entire evening. (Final score: Reds 5, Giants 0.)
Jack Sanford took the loss, dropping his record to 6-6. From this point on, however, he'd go 18-1 for the Giants and sneak into second place in the post-season Cy Young Award voting, a process that was much more primitive than it is now. That actually goes double, because the award was still in its "let's give one pitcher in all of MLB an award" phase as well as its "let's give the award to the pitcher with the most wins" phase.
Purkey had a very consistent year, and though he did have better run support than anyone (5.4 runs/start), he was pitching in the same quality neighborhood as the other leading contenders for the Cy Young Award all through the year. Here's how the top NL pitchers in '62 stacked up after the games of June 13:
Bob Shaw and
Dick (Turk) Farrell were out ahead of the pack, but they'd begun in the bullpen. Marichal was doing well, but he would fade a bit from this point on, as he'd become more susceptible to the gopher ball (BTW, does anyone still call it the "gopher ball"??). Purkey, a finesse pitcher even in that age of lower K/9 ratios, was hanging in with
Sandy Koufax (just revving up his great run in June and early July before he'd be lost for two months).
Billy O'Dell,
Don Drysdale, and Sanford are further down the leaders list. Big D would step things up from this point on, and his win total (25) is what swayed the voters.
Here's what the five principal pitchers for the Dodgers and Giants did after June 13...and, what the heck, let's look at Purkey's numbers too:
Purkey is remarkably consistent, with an almost identical ERA in both slices. His ERA+ for the year was 143, which matched Koufax' in a more abbreviated season (Purkey threw 100 more innings than Koufax) and was better than Drysdale's (128) and much better than Sanford's (112).
The Reds had a 28-9 record when Purkey was on the mound, which was in the same realm as the Dodgers' record when Drysdale started (31-10). In short, a strong case can be made for Purkey having been robbed.
MEANWHILE, at Milwaukee's County Stadium, Koufax threw his own three-hitter, though he was robbed of a shutout when one of those hits was a homer (allowed to lowly-hitting shortstop Roy McMillan). But this is also the game that Koufax writes about so entertainingly in his autobiography--because on this evening in Milwaukee, Sandy hit his first home run of his MLB career--off
Warren Spahn, in the fifth inning (a fact that a man who hit only two lifetime homers is highly likely to remember!). He would likely never forget for another reason: Koufax' reputation as a weak hitter was so established at this point that when he hit the homer, Spahn went through four of the five stages of grief immediately--and vocally (Koufax reports that as he rounded third base, Spahn bellowed: "What are you trying to do, make a mockery of the game?").
Mockery or not, Sandy's "blast" proved to be the deciding run in the game. The Dodgers had scored in the second when Daryl Spencer singled home Tommy Davis. Koufax' strikeout total was relatively low--just six--but he mowed through the heart of the Braves' batting order (Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Joe Adcock) to nail down his ninth win of the season. (Final score: Dodgers 2, Braves 1.)
SEASON RECORDS: LAD 44-20, SFG 42-22
