Posts Tagged ‘Bobby Pfeil’
SEAVER SHUTS OUT PHILLY FOR 25TH WIN
Saturday, September 27, 1969
Making his final start of the season, Tom Seaver won his league-leading 25th game as the Mets edged the host Phillies 1-0. Not to be outdone by his staffmate, Seaver followed Jerry Koosman’s complete-game shutout on Friday with one of his own. The Franchise gave up just three hits, two to rookie catcher Dave Watkins, in yet another dominating performance. With the shutout, Seaver lowered his season ERA to 2.20, third best in the National League and just ahead of Koosman’s mark of 2.23. He finishes out the regular season on an amazing run, going 8-0 with an ERA of 0.63 in his final eight starts, all complete games.
Philadelphia’s Grant Jackson matched Seaver’s scoreless effort inning for inning until the eighth, when the Mets managed the lone run of the game. Don Clendenon walked with two outs, advanced to second on Ron Swoboda’s walk, and came around to score when Bobby Pfeil knocked a single into center. Seaver then retired the last six men he faced to close out the game.
Mets manager Gil Hodges batted Cleon Jones leadoff, giving his leftfielder the maximum number of plate appearances in his pursuit of Cincinnati’s Pete Rose in the National League batting title race. Jones collected two singles in four at-bats to raise his season average to .343, while Rose also went 2 for 4 and now stands at .348. The Pirates’s Roberto Clemente is currently third in the league at .340 after going 2 for 3.
Mets 1, Phillies 0. W: Seaver (25-7) L: Jackson (14-17)
KOOSMAN KEEPS METS ON MISSION, WINS FIFTH STRAIGHT
Friday, September 26, 1969
Playing in their first game as reigning division champs, the New York Mets beat the host Phillies on Jerry Koosman’s four-hit shutout. It was Koosman’s fifth complete game and fifth win in a row, and the twenty-seven year-old lefty has lowered his season ERA to a staff-best 2.21.
With a batting lineup that featured a number of reserves including Rod Gaspar, Bob Heise, Amos Otis, Bobby Pfeil and Duffy Dyer, the Mets put five men across the plate. Two days after hitting a pair of home runs in Wednesday’s clincher, Don Clendenon went deep with two out and one on in the first inning to give New York and early lead. Koosman took it from there and allowed just one Phillies batter to reach base (a walk to Tony Taylor) from the fifth inning onward.
Otis had two hits and drove in a run while starting in center in place of Tommie Agee.
Mets 5, Phillies 0. W: Koosman (17-9) L: Fryman (12-15)
HANDS, MARICHAL BOTH WIN 16TH
Friday, August 29, 1969
Bill Hands outdueled Pat Jarvis in Atlanta to give the Cubs their second consecutive win. Don Kessinger went 3 for 4 and scored once, Ron Santo went 2 for 4, and Jim Hickman hit his 17th home run of the year.
Cubs 2, Braves 1. W: Hands (16-11) L: Jarvis (10-9)
Gary Gentry got off to a rough start in San Francisco and gave up four runs in the first inning, including three on a home run by Bobby Bonds. His counterpart, Juan Marichal, dominated the Mets in yielding just four hits while striking out seven. Bobby Pfeil was 2 for 4 for New York.
Giants 5, Mets 0. W: Marichal (16-9) L: Gentry (9-11)
NL EAST W L T PCT GB RS RA
Chicago Cubs 80 52 1 .606 - 614 471
New York Mets 74 53 0 .583 3.5 498 456
CUBS, METS BOTH LOSE AT HOME
Friday, July 11, 1969
The Cubs let things get away in their first game back at Wrigley.
RBI singles from Paul Popvich and Glenn Beckert gave Chicago a 5-3 lead over the Phillies going into the top of the 9th. But after reliever Hank Aguirre was greeted with a home run by Johnny Briggs, his second in consecutive at-bats, Ted Abernathy came in and poured gasoline on the fire by giving up hits to 4 of the 5 batters he faced, including a roundtripper to Ron Stone.
Billy Williams went 3 for 5 and both Don Kessinger and Beckert went 2 for 4, who lost despite pounding out 11 hits.
Phillies 7, Cubs 5. W: Boozer (1-0) L: Abernathy (4-2) SV: B. Wilson (4)
***
Jim McAndrew, Danny Frisella, and Jack DiLauro combined for the dubious distinction of surrendering 11 runs on 15 hits to the expansion Montreal Expos at Shea. Art Shamsky went 2 for 3 with a home run, and rookie Bobby Pfeil also had 2 hits for New York. Expos starting pitcher Mike Wegener not only got the win but was his team’s hitting star, going 3 for 4 with 4 RBI.
Expos 11, Mets 4. W: Wegener (4-7) L: McAndrew (2-3) SV: Radatz (2)
TOM SEAVER TAKES PERFECT GAME INTO 9TH AGAINST CUBS **40 YEARS AGO TODAY**
Wednesday, July 9, 1969
Tom Seaver flirted with perfection, and now the Mets are flirting with the unimaginable – a run at first place.
It was clear from the first inning onward that the Mets’ young ace brought his good stuff to the ballpark. He struck out Don Kessinger to start the game and retired the side in order in the first. In the bottom of the inning, Tommie Agee led off with a triple and rookie Bobby Pfeil followed with a double off Chicago’s Ken Holtzman to score the game’s first run. Although the Mets would add three more in the game, one on a Cleon Jones homer, Agee’s was all they would need as Seaver pitched the game of his life.
New York’s 24-year-old hurler struck out the side in the second. He sent the Cubs down 1-2-3 in the third, and then again in the fourth. As he would later comment, “I was aware from the fourth inning on that I had a perfect game, and I was going for it.”
By 1969, only eight pitchers in the entire history of baseball had recorded a perfect game – that is, allowing not one opposing batter to reach base on either a hit, walk, error, or getting hit by a pitch. That’s nine consecutive 1-2-3 innings…27 batters up, 27 batters out.
After he got relief pitcher Ted Abernathy on strikes to end the top of the 6th, Seaver had gone through the Chicago lineup twice without a blemish. He took on the top of the order again in the seventh, getting Don Kessinger and Glenn Beckert on flyouts and Billy Williams on a groundout. Ron Santo flied out to lead off the eighth. Still going strong, Seaver struck out both Ernie Banks and Al Spangler.
When Seaver came to bat in the bottom of the inning, the game stopped for nearly two minutes as the Shea crowd stood in applause for the most dominant performance by a Mets pitcher they had ever seen.
In the top of the ninth and the game all but in hand, Seaver took the mound just three outs from baseball immortality. He got Randy Hundley out weakly, pitcher to first. Up next was the 8th-place hitter, Jim Qualls, a seldom-played rookie who brought a .244 average into the game. Seaver wound up and delivered a pitch, and Qualls blooped it into leftfield for a soft hit, not far from where Ed Kranepool’s game-winner had landed the previous night.
The quest for the perfect game was over, but the home crowd stood and cheered again in recognition of Seaver’s outstanding night. Visibly disappointed, he collected his emotions and retired pinch-hitter Willie Smith on a foul pop-up and then got Don Kessinger to fly out to leftfield for the game’s final out.
Seaver’s pitching performance would go down in Mets memory as The Imperfect Game. “That was the best game I ever pitched,” he’d later say. “It was better than my no-hitter with Cincinnati. I had great stuff that night, superb control, and a mastery of all my pitches. It was obvious even before the game.”
And it was now obvious that the Chicago Cubs had serious competition in the N.L. East.
Mets 4, Cubs 0. W: Seaver (14-3) L: Holtzman (10-5)
Chicago Cubs AB R H RBI BB SO Kessinger ss 4 0 0 0 0 2 Beckert 2b 3 0 0 0 0 0 Williams lf 3 0 0 0 0 1 Santo 3b 3 0 0 0 0 1 Banks 1b 3 0 0 0 0 2 Spangler rf 3 0 0 0 0 3 Hundley c 3 0 0 0 0 0 Qualls cf 3 0 1 0 0 0 Holtzman p 0 0 0 0 0 0 Abernathy p 2 0 0 0 0 2 W. Smith ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 28 0 1 0 0 11
New York Mets IP H R ER BB SO HR BFP Seaver W (14-3) 9 1 0 0 0 11 0 28
Team Name W L T PCT GB Chicago Cubs 52 33 1 .612 - New York Mets 47 34 0 .580 3.0 Pittsburgh Pirates 41 43 0 .488 10.5 St. Louis Cardinals 42 45 0 .483 11.0 Philadelphia Phillies 37 45 0 .451 13.5 Montreal Expos 26 58 0 .310 25.5