Evening star., 1936-04-23
Offense Not Clicking.

NUN performances ale eelta w
~ help, but unless Travis and Rey-
nolds are better supported, at least in
an offensive measure, the Nationals
hardly can hope to get very far. Up
until yesterday, when the club quit
Boston with 4-to-3 licking. Jesse
Hill wasn't of much help. The fleet
outfelder led a 12-hit attack Yesterday
with three safeties. but before making
his first blow Jesse had gone 70 bat II
consecutive times without dropping a
ball safe.
Buddy Myer. always slow starter,
has been no exception to his rule this
year. and Jake Powell has been hitting
only spasmodically. The biggest dis
appointment of all to date has been
Joe Kuhel. The agile first sacker. who
was expected to stage quite come
back this Spring, has made a lone hit
in his last 20 times at bat.
The season, of course, is yet young.
Ball players do get off to slow starts,
and Kuhel may be one of these. The
same goes for Myer and Powell, whose
current cases strike a parallel with
last years instances. And Hill, by his
performance yesterday, showed that
he is a better ball player than he has
looked. But right now the Nationals
are not clicking as an offensive unit,
and unless they do, good showing
hardly can be expected, in view of rec
ogniZed pitching weaknesses.
Many Hits Wasted.
COME little idea of how pointless a
pretty highly touted Washington
attack has been Mis- campaign may be
obtained from a brief review of box
score totals. In their 10 games to date
the Nationals have slugged out 80 base
hits of assorted distances. This is
fair sum at this time of the year, when
the pitchers are supposed to be ahead
Of the hitters. Yet they've scored only
36 runs and left grand total of 83
men on the base paths. This is not
winning base ball.
To another daily example of this
futility Buck Newsom owes his first
defeat of the year. Newsom was
charged with his initial setback yes
terday when the Nationals quit Bos-
ton for two more days in New York
before opening an extended home
stand.
The Red Sox made only six hits
off Newsom while the Nationals made
twice as many off Fritz Ostermueller,
the winning hurler Going into the
last inning, Newsom seemed soundly
licked, to /. That's how little Of
fensive cooperation he had been given.
The Nationals made a dying ges-
ture to pull the game out Of the fire
and nearly succeeded. After Kuhel
had rolled out and Bolton hoisted to
Manush, little Bobby Estalella batted
for NewSom and cracked prodigious
triple to right field. Hill followed with
has third hit of the day. rousing
Lewis, hitless all day, batted one of
his three base specials down the right
field line, counting Hill and put
ting the tying run on third base. Thus
1t was up to Buddy Myer, whose best
was q foul to Werber.
B0SOx Get Breaks.
EARLIER in the game there had
been none of this sort of attack,
though. Opportunities aplenty were
tossed away in every known manner.
At that, but for couple of breaks
against Newsom, the puny run-scor-
ing talents of the Nationals might
have sufficed. In the fifth, with
the Sox leading only by to 0, New
som got of fast ball to Ostermuel-
Ter that was too high and Fritz
sliced 1t into left field for a fiuke
double that scored two runs. The