The Washington times., 1932-06-01
GR|FFS NEED
MORE EPOWER
ON MOUND
BY BABE RUTH

Some recent happenings in the
two major leagues have served to
emphasize the Importance of
pitching, and to prove what 1t
can do for you when the hitters
are in a slump. On the other
hand there has been marked evil
dence that good hitting will not
get a team anywhere unless 1t
has steady pitching to back it up.
The slump which dropped the
Washington team out Of first
place a few days ago was due
partly to a shortage Of pitchers
and partly to a slump on the
part of the smallest staff in the
league. The Senators were hit
ting fairly we'll while dropping
eight games in a stretch of
eleven. but their pitchers could
not hold the other teams back.
There was an average of almost
seven runs per game against the
Senators, in spite of a strong
defensive infield and outfield.
Gave Too Much
When the deal was made dur
ing the winter, sending Sam
Jones and Irving Hadley to the
White SoX in exchange for Carl
Reynolds, I expressed the belief
that the club was giving up too
much pitching strength in order
to improve its hitting Reynolds
has played great ball for the
Senators and his hitting has won
a few games. but 1 still believe
that Jones and Hadley would
make big difference now.
Washington has only seven pitch
ers as this is written and two of
them were never in the majors
until this year. 1t seems too
small staff. but perhaps later
developments will prove I am
wrong in this belief.
Take the Phillies IN the Ma
tional League The PhilS have
been battling the Giants all
spring for team honors in bat
ting, and both are we'll ahead of
the six remaining teams in the
league. But the Phils have not
the sort of pitching to win con-
sistently and a few days ago
they fell into last place, despite
all that slugging. New York has
the type of pitching which
should win consistently, but Nc
Graw's regulars have been below
form this spring, and the teams
hard hitting has not been
enough to raise the Giants out
OF the second division. Yet it
was hard enough hitting to keep
them first in team batting.
Yank HurIerS Shine
Our team had a sample of the
Importance of pitching within
the past month when we ran into
a batting slump and runs became
very scarce. Pipgras pitched a
10 victory over Detroit, Allen
had a 80 win over st. Louis,
and both Gomez and johnson
won 80 games from Cleveland.
Where would we have been in
these games without good pitch
ing? We scored only 10 runs in
the four games and won all of
them. Then there was Gomez's
81 victory over the Athletics.
When a team scores no more
than three runs these days it
doesn't figure to win ball games,
yet I have pointed out five games
We won in less than three weeks
when we didn't score more than
three runs in any of them.
The last week in May, with the
pennant races almost two months
old, showed only four of the 16
clubs with a batting average
above .28O. And do you know
that two of these four clubs
spent most of the time in the
second division? The Yankees
didn't, but we had the benefit Of
what was easily the best pitching
in either league during the early
weeks.
Pitchers Big Help
, The Boston Braves and the
Cubs, who have been battling for
the leadership in the National
League, have been hitting far be.
low the pace set for the Giants
and the Phillies. But the first
two are out in front and the other
two are way down. I do not
mean to imply that all the blame
for the failure of the Giants and
PhillieS belongs in the pitching
staff. There have been other
weak spots in the defense. But
when pitchers are going we'll they
offset other weaknesses. Mean
while hitterS may be pounding
the ball all over the lot, but the
team cannot win steadily without
the pitching.
The Phillies have been notable
examples of this condition for
some reasons. A few years ago
Detroit always had great hitting
teams, but lacked the sort of
pitching needed to keep the Tigers
in the pennant race So far this
year the Detroit pitching has been
of higher grade than the stick.
work, and the Tigers have re,
manned up around the first divi.
sion, almost since opening day
though hitting under .265.
A team which gets good, steady
pitching will usually finish ahead
of the one which has plenty of hit
ting strength but little else.
Il2ZEs.s2 LSsgSs.al ar.