August 31, 1964: An unexpected dozen runs for Drysdale

Don Drysdale had 209 wins and hit 154 batters, which is why fellow Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda said, “The trick against Drysdale is to hit him before he hits you,” according to baseballhall.org. Drysdale kept his scoreless streak alive in 1968 despite a batter he did hit with the bases loaded, thanks to umpire Harry Wendelstedt. Drysdale had thrown four straight shutouts — he almost had to for the 1968 Dodgers to win. Drysdale shut out the Cubs on two hits to win, 1-0; the Astros on five hits to win, 1-0; the NL champion Cards on five hits to win, 2-0 (Bob Gibson, who had a 1.12 ERA, allowed one hit over eight innings and lost); and the Astros on six hits to win, 5-0. Having thrown 36 consecutive scoreless innings, the Dodgers scored three runs on May 31, and Drysdale took a 3-0 lead, a five-hit shutout and a streak of 44 scoreless innings into the ninth against the Giants. Drysdale walked Willie McCovey and Dave Marshall around a Jim Ray Hart single and the Giants had the bases loaded with nobody out. The game and the scoreless streak were in jeopardy. Drysdale hit catcher Dick Dietz with a 2-2 pitch, but after Dietz took two strides toward first base, he turned, and looking like a dancer who had lost the beat of the band, hopped back to home plate in a fury. Wendelstedt ruled Dietz hadn’t tried to avoid the pitch, called it a ball and brought him back to hit with a 3-2 count (decide for yourself; link here). It was such an unusual ruling that announcer Vin Scully naturally assumed Wendelstedt had ruled the pitch had hit the bat. “He stood there like a post,” Giants second baseman Ron Hunt said, according to the Associated Press. “It was a high slider, and he didn’t make an attempt.” Hunt counted as an expert witness, having been hit by pitches 243 times in his career, including 50 in 1971. After an argument, which Dietz lost, he lost the at-bat, too. He flew out to shallow left, Ty Cline grounded into a force out first baseman to home, and Jack Hiatt popped out. Drysdale had five straight shuts and 45 scoreless innings. Drysdale then blanked the Pirates on three hits to make it 54, and he blanked the Phillies for the first four innings of his next start, breaking Walter Johnson’s MLB record of 55.2 innings. Leading the Phillies, 4-0, in the fifth, Drysdale allowed singles to Tony Taylor and Clay Dalrymple and fanned Roberto Pena. Pinch-hitter Howie Bedell then hit a sacrifice fly to left to end the streak. It was the only RBI of the season for Bedell, who had just 159 career plate appearances. It was the third and final RBI of Bedell’s career. “I wanted the record so bad, but I’m glad it’s over,” Drysdale said, according to ESPN.com. “I could feel myself go blah when the run scored. I just let down emotionally. I’m sure it was the mental strain.”

Editor’s note: This is one in a series of articles retelling the 1964 season. Stay for the end.

Don Drysdale won 25 games, kept opponents scoreless for a then-record 58.2 innings, won a Cy Young Award and three World Series titles, yet might never have pitched better than he did in 1964, when he won 18 games and few plaudits.

He won No. 15 on this night 56 years ago when the Dodgers provided something for him they rarely did in his career — runs. They scored 12 of them to helped Drysdale and the Dodgers rout the Cardinals, 12-3.

No one was probably more stunned than Drysdale, for whom the Dodgers had scored 12 runs in his previous six starts. But it wasn’t just Drysdale. The Dodgers hadn’t scored more than three runs in their previous 10 games. That’s the kind of support the Lincoln Project is giving the president in this election cycle.

The loss dropped the fourth-place Cardinals seven-and-a-half games behind the idle Phillies, but their fortunes were soon to improve. In the final month, they won 22 of their last 32 games and the NL pennant.

The Dodgers’ status barely changed. With the win, the defending world champions were 63-66, in seventh place, seven-and-a-half games behind the Cardinals and 15 behind the Phillies. They plodded along over the last month at 17-16, got two games closer to first place and moved a position up to sixth. For a team that swept the Yankees 11 months previous, it was a disappointing season.

None of this was the fault of Drsydale, who had the most reason to be disappointed. He easily could have won 20 games if he could have allocated the 12 the Dodgers scored on this day over the final month.

His win over the Cardinals wasn’t his best effort. For the season, 32 of his 40 starts would meet the depreciated modern-day standard of a quality start. His biggest accomplishment on this date was probably hiding his astonishment when the Dodgers scored five runs in the fourth inning.

To be fair, the Dodgers needed aid, and plenty of it. Drysdale came to bat with the bases loaded (two walks and a hit) and singled in the first two runs. The next three scored when, with the bases re-loaded, MVP third baseman Ken Boyer misplayed Dick Tracewski’s grounder and unloaded them.

Leading, 5-2, Drysdale managed to pitch with his mouth agape, allowed nine hits, fanned 12 and benefited when non-power hitters Maury Wills (two homers in 685 plate appearances) and rookie Wes Parker (three in 240) homered.

It was a rare outburst from an offense limited to 614 runs, 189 fewer than MLB leader Milwaukee. The ’64 Dodgers ranked 16th in MLB in runs, 18th in OPS and 19th in home runs and slugging percentage.

If only Drysdale could have pitched against the Dodgers rather than for them, 20 wins would have been a cinch.

Instead Drysdale won 18 in 1964 and 20 just twice in his Hall of Fame career. In the matter of accumulating wins, Drysdale had the misfortune to come along when Walter O’Malley and the Dodgers were changing their emphasis. The Boys of Summer Dodgers of Branch Rickey had four Hall of Famers — and Gil Hodges would make five if he ever gets in — in their starting lineup; a decade later they had none.

“You may glory in a team triumphant, but you fall in love with a team in defeat,” Roger Kahn said about the teams he chronicled.

O’Malley wasn’t into sentimentality, and a decade later he gloried in triumphant Dodgers teams built on pitching.

(The 1962 Dodgers, thanks to Maury Willis’ 104 steals and the 79 homers hit by an outfield of Frank Howard, Tommy Davis and Willie Davis, were the exception. Davis also hit .346 and slugged .535, and the ’62 Dodgers were second in MLB in runs scored. The ’63 world champions were 12th and the ’65 world champions 15th; the ’68 Dodgers Drysdale had his scoreless streak for were 19th.)

Take 1964. Drysdale pitched a career-high 321.1 innings, had a nearly career-low 2.18 ERA, made 40 starts and completed 21 of them, allowed just 242 hits (that’s a .207 average against) and only 15 home runs (one every 21.1 innings), fanned 237 and walked just 68 batters (one every 4.2 innings). He had a .538 OPS against and career-best 147 ERA+ and 7.8 WAR.

For what might have been the best season of his career, he got no Cy Young votes, no MVP votes and barely more wins than losses (18-16).

In the 16 games Drysdale lost, the Dodgers played for him as if they held a grudge. They scored 32 runs, two or fewer 12 times. They were shut out five times, and Drysdale lost four games by 1-0, including one in the 11th inning at Philadelphia in June on an unearned run.

That was worse than his penultimate start of the season, when with 18 wins and a chance for 20, he pitched a three-hit shutout over 10 innings at Houston and left to a no-decision. The Dodgers lost, 1-0, in 12.

O’Malley’s reaction to the 1964 failures on offense was to get more pitching. He traded home run hitter Frank Howard for Claude Osteen, the Dodgers scored six fewer runs and won the World Series. Drysdale’s ERA rose more than half a run and he won five more games — 23 in all.

Sometimes the strike zone isn’t the only thing in baseball that doesn’t make sense.

Drysdale’s frustrating 1964 was in the midst of a remarkable stretch that grooved his way into Cooperstown and perhaps shortened his career. From 1962-1966, Drysdale started 40 games every season; he averaged 41 and 306.2 innings per season, and from 1962-65, he completed 77 of the 165 starts he made, or 47%.

It was a remarkable workload he carried, one probably not without effects. But the simplest explanation for the Dodgers improvement from 80-82 in 1964 to 97-65 in 1965, besides the addition of Osteen, is that Drysdale and Sandy Koufax made 68 starts in 1964 and 83 — more than half the Dodgers games — in 1965.

Drysdale’s greatest accomplishment was the scoreless innings streak of 1968, and it was his last complete season. There aren’t many players whose careers ended as abruptly as Drsydale’s. He pitched the 58.2 scoreless innings over seven starts — believe it or not, the Dodgers, who scored 2.9 runs per game in the Year of the Pitcher, won them all — but 1968 was a lot like 1964. Drysdale had a 2.15 ERA, threw eight shutouts and won just 14 games, losing 12.

A year later he made only 12 starts because of a shoulder injury, and he never pitched again. He was 33 years old.

If his retirement had anything to do with the Dodgers’ offense, or lack thereof, Drysdale never said.