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THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO, PART 6 ...
"THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM"
Lee Stange shuts
out the
Tribe on only 83 pitches
July
22, 1967 ... Lee Stange disposed of the ace of
the Cleveland pitching staff, Steve Hargan, with his blazing fastball
and posted his seventh lifetime shutout, 4 to 0, the eighth win in a
row for the Red Sox. The win trimmed the lead of the league leading
Chicago White Sox to one half game over Boston. Hargan couldn't get
the ball past Mike Andrews, who knocked it over the fence in left field for a
home run, the big hit of the game. And nobody could get past second base on
Stange. He has now won three in a row and his three hitter was quite a
performance today. Only one runner got to second base, and that was Hargan. He
blooped a single to center in the third inning and moved along when Vic
Davalillo received a free pass. But Larry Brown lined out to end the inning.
Stange was hitting the corners with his slider and there was no chance he was
going to fade, the way he was pitching.
Stange had a little help defensively with Tony Conigliaro making a one-handed
leaping catch of Duke Sims' liner in the fifth. Jerry Adair came up with two
hard plays on bad bouncing ground balls, and Joe Foy dug out a hard grounder hit
to his right.
In the first inning, after Andrews hit his line drive home run, Yastrzemski
walked and Conigliaro hit one down to Max Alvis, who forced Yaz at second, but
on the pivot, Ed Fuller threw wildly past first base. Tony ended up on second
and George Scott blooped a single to right, to score the second run of the
inning.
The Sox scored again in the third, thanks to some more pitiful outfielding,
this time by Leon Wagner in left-field. Andrews singled for his second straight
hit, to open up the inning and went to second when Wagner let the ball bounce
off him. Foy singled to right and it looked dangerous when Andrews, who was
barely third-base, decided to try for a home. Lee Maye picked up the ball and it
went yards wide of the plate, allowing the Red Sox to score the third run.
Carl Yastrzemski, who had not been hitting very well on the road trip, came
to bat in the eighth inning against George Culver. He had gotten just one hit in
his last 13 times at bat, but he got over the slump when he slammed his 23rd
home run of the season, 400 feet over the left-field fence.
Andrews singled again in the fifth, for his fourth straight base hit, but he
was finally stopped in the seventh inning when he hit a ground ball.
Indians catcher Duke Sims was one of the only few who hit Stange hard, lining
out three times. His last drive was one that George Thomas caught against the
right-field wall. |
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