Saturday Tripleheader on NBC

It’s a Saturday full of SP78 baseball on NBC today, as the A’s take on the division-leading Yankees at Yankee Stadium, the Mariners meet the red-hot Orioles in Baltimore, and the Twins battle it out with the Blue Jays in Toronto.

Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek will be in New York for the opening game, while Charlie Jones and Wes Parker will call the action from Baltimore, and Dick Enberg and Hank Aaron will wrap up the broadcast tripleheader tonight at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.

It will also be the first time in SP78 history that a trio of games will have start times spread out over an entire day: one in the morning, one in the evening, and one at night. The evening Twins-Jays contest will wrap up the slate of games for August 26th.

Comet Beaned, Cards Respond in 12-3 Melee

After last week’s series-ending brawl between the Cardinals and Braves in St Louis, everyone was waiting for the simmering anger to bubble over between these two teams in the follow-up series at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. It didn’t happen in the opening game on Friday, but in Saturday’s meeting, all hell broke loose when 15-year-old rookie Todd Benefiel was hit in the head by a pitch from reliever Dave Campbell, sparking a brawl that saw six players ejected from the game, in what would be an eventual 12-3 Cards victory.

Tensions were already on high when St Louis opened the game with three quick runs off Atlanta starter Eddie Solomon (4-10), thanks to singles from Benefiel and Garry Templeton, and a three-run blast over the wall in right by Keith Hernandez, his tenth home run of the season. The Braves would counter with a run in the second, when Gary Matthews tripled home Jeff Burroughs with one out; Matthews would be left stranded at third, however, as Cards right-hander Silvio Martinez (9-11) retired the next two batters on easy infield outs to end the threat.

To read the entire recap, make comments, and see an important section of the scoresheet, click here.

Pole Leads M’s Past Floundering Bosox 3-0

For Seattle pitcher Dick Pole, it was a chance to prove to his former team that his current numbers—a 4-10 won-lost record and a 4.52 ERA—were a fluke, and that his starting performance from a few weeks earlier—a 5-1 complete game win over the Twins—was more indicative of what he could accomplish if given the chance.

The Red Sox, however had other ideas…and none of them were good, as Pole pitched a remarkable 3-0 shutout over the struggling Bosox, allowing just seven hits and striking out seven batters on his way to his fifth win. Not bad for a PB 2-5 pitcher whose last—and up to now, only—shutout came in 1975, when he played for his pennant-winning opponents.

To read more about the game, make comments, and see a few photos, click here.

Caldwell Earns 20th as Brewers Topple Tribe 9-1

Milwaukee Brewers ace Mike Caldwell became the first pitcher of the SP78 Replay season to reach the 20-win mark, allowing just one run on eight hits and going the distance in a convincing 9-1 victory over the Indians, in the first game of a ‘Ladies Night’ doubleheader at Milwaukee.

Caldwell (20-4) found himself involved in a pitching duel early on with Tribe starter Sid Monge (0-5), with Monge allowing just two hits to Caldwell’s four over the first four innings. But while Caldwell stayed strong into the eighth, Monge fell apart in the fifth, coughing up four earned runs thanks to Gorman Thomas’ 22nd home run of the season, a grand slam that just cleared the short County Stadium wall in left. It was his first slam of the SP78 season, and the third of his five-year career.

To read more about the game, make comments, and see a few photos, click here.