Blog Archive

Friday, July 20, 2018

1973 NLCS - Dodgers sweep Redbirds in 3 straight. All close games

Special thanks to Bruce Thomas for making it a fun and entertaining series.  We spent the whole series chit-chatting on DISCORD.  Nothing better than h2h for the strategy and the relationships.  Our topics bounced around between 1970's baseball, the '51 Dodgers, M*A*S*H and who knows what.  Bruce had the underdog Redbirds who won the NL East with a .500 record.  Still all 3 games were tight, especially game 3, where he was up 4-1 and the Dodgers won it in the 9th with a 2 run shot by Willie Davis to put the boys from Hollyweird up 5-4.

GAME 1:
Sutton outlasts Gibby, who was chased late in the game.  The game was tied at 2 after 4, but the Dodgers realized this was 1973's version of Gibby and not 1968's and they scored 3 runs off him over the next 2 innings to stake Sutton to a lead he wouldn't relinquish.  Bill Russell was 4-4 on the day with a run and an RBI out of the 7 hole.  Sutton notched the CG win and no one bellyached about his 125 pitches thrown :)

GAME 2:
Messersmith looked like a Cy Young winner out-dueling Rick Wise.  LA scored all of their runs in the bottom of the 2nd thanks to 2 hits and 3 walks off of Wise.  Messersmith scattered 4 hits and gave up one run thanks to a Davey Lopes error and a WP by Andy himself.  STL's best chance to get Messersmith was in the 6th.  Teddy Simmons hit a deep drive that Davis flagged down against the wall with one out.  Torre and McBride followed with 2 out singles, but Kenny Reitz ended the threat with a weak pop up to 3-Dog.  Messersmith cruised the rest of the way.

GAME 3:
As mentioned earlier STL took a 4-1 lead into the 9th but Hrabosky and Pena couldn't hold down the fort.  Without a doubt 3-Dog is the Series MVP hitting .417 and having the game winning 2 runs shot.  Can't forget Bill Russell who hit .583.  Jim Brewer got the save with a shaky 9th, but we'll take it.  Doug Rau got the win after pitching a scoreless 8th in relief of Claude Osteen, who was roughed up early, but righted the ship to survive.

No comments:

Post a Comment