Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-06-13
BY JOHN b. KELLER.


A T last Iris Speaker promises t
s6tJN become the potent factor il
~ the attack that he was eX
"a 4 pected to be when added to th'
sae Nationals roster last Winter
For time during the training season
the Gray Eagle socked the sphere il
the manner that made him so feared
by pitchers in other years, but in the
first six weeks of the championship
campaign he did little to help the
vsclub's cause. Recently. though. Spoke
has walloped the ball we'll enough to
Sget batting rating of 1862 for the
last is games. And his hitting has
had much to do with the winning of
five of the last six contests staged on
1.-The home lot.
ac4n these is games in which he has
picked up in his batting, Iris has failed
to drive the sphere to safety in but
sQle. That was against his old club,
the Indians, last Thursday. He had
his best day of the season yesterday
-When he slammed the offerings of the
White Sox pitchers for three hits in
rfour efforts while the Nationals were
winning, to l.
i:;AApd while Spoke has been coming
to life some of the other Nationals.
who were hitting far below the form
reasonably expected of them, have
shown signs of coming out of their
batting Slumps. Sam Rice has
banged the ball in fine fashion in
the last week and so has Bucky Harris.
In yesterdays tilt Joe Judge cleared
a batting eye that had been dim for
days and got four hits in four times
up. All needed now to make the
upper part of the Nationals batting
order really dangerous to any oppos-
q ifuIn ip Cnncn iva'
? clubbing form.
s.r- Good Chance to Climb.
With a continuation of the attack
sng power Rice, Harris, Speaker and
Judge have displayed recently and
some long hitting by Goslin, the Ma
tionals would be very much in the
American League race. even though
now nine games behind the circuit
leading Yankees. Only the Yanks,
White Sox and Athletics have lost
less games than the Nationals. and
the AS have dropped but one less
while the loss column of the ChisoX
Is lower than that of Bucky Harris
bunch by only two.
So far this season, the Nationals
k1ve been rather poor as road club.
And after six more games here they
Will be on foreign lots for six of the
following seven weeks. But if their
present hitting streak is maintained
they ought to show some improve
ment in their work away from home. |
They are doing well defensively, even
though more errors have been
charged against them in the past two |
weeks than over any other similar |
stretch this season. and their pitch |
ing iS good IT will not take much |
OF squirt to get them far ahead of |
their present standing.
They certainly got good pitching |
yesterday from Horace Lisenbee. This |
young graduate of the Memphis club |
got sweet revenge for the licking the |
White Sox handed him in Chicago last |
month, the first licking of his big |
league career. Only five hits were |
yielded by. him and his control was |
good all the way. He did not have to |
work very hard against many of the |
batters facing him, and over the route |
he was cool and preciShe in his efforts |
Opposing Lisenbee for seven innings |
was the veteran Red Faber and he |
took deal of punishment in that |
time. Thirteen hits were garnered off |
his slants, nine of them being clust |
cred in three productive innings. Bert |
Cole toiled on the hill for the White |
Sox for an inning after Faber had
given way to a pinch and the
Nationals got him for enough wallops
to swell their hit total of the game to
fifteen. Every player in the local line
up broke into the swat column.
Start Scoring Early.
The Nationals started their scoring
IN the first frame. With Rice out of