Evening star., 1945-07-19
Leonard Is Slab Hope
Tonight 10 End Skid
OF BIuege S Men
By JOHN B. KELLER.

| BY JOHN b. KELLER.
Unless the Mats soon mend their
ways on the home lot, their pennant
bubble will burst.
When they dropped those two
games to Detroit's Tigers last night
at Griffith Stadium, their home per-
centage for the season fell back to
500. All that is keeping them up is
the $50 clip at which they have
travelled on the road this year.
The double-beating with scores of
GA and SO dropped the Mats to
fourth place, five games off the
pace-setting Tigers. 1t also ran their
newest losing streak to four games
and the shutout in the second set-to
was their first since June 8. Then
they bowed to Russ Christopher of
the AS in Philadelphia.
Face Rookie in Debut.
1t will be up to Dutch Leonard
tonight to check the Tiger hitting,
but it will be up to the Mats to pull
themselves out of their slump at the
plate as they face Zeb Eaton, a right
handler who will make his first start
of the year.
Leonard will be after his 18th win
Eaton has picked up three victories
as a reliever.
Hal Newhouser maintained his
spell over the Mats in the first game
and went along to his 18th win of
the season. 1t was his fourth victory
over Washington this year and his
ninth in succession in the past two
seasons. The Mats have not defeated
him since 1943.
At that, they made their best
showing of the year against him.
They combed the lefthander for
seven hits, three of those two
baggers, and five walks and the
Tiger hurler made two wild pitches
and committed a balk. Their run
total was greater by one than all
they had scored in their three pre-
sious games against him this year
But it was not enough.
Staked to two-run lead, Mickey
Haefner was good until the fourth
inning. He was through after the
seventh. Mickey gave up eight hits
and four passes, one Intentionally.
The Tigers clustered seven of the
hits and three of the passes in the
fourth, fifth and sixth rounds for
all their runs, and the three passes
were converted into scores. Santi-
ago Ullrich took over in the last two
innings and yielded just one hit.
Muff Chances to Win.
The Mats muffed two good
chances to win. When they had the
bases full and Newhouser tottering
in the second inning, Myatt drilled
into force-out. They had runners
on first and third in the eighth
when the Tiger lefthander again
looked ready for trimming. But
Evans let three pitches go by to be
called strikes.
The Tigers took the second game |
in the first inning when good sup
port would have blocked them from
the plate. But they punched three
of their eight hits off Marino Pier |
etti in the eighth for a pair of runs
SAAdb AAdNC bAlCA Will well cdI lieu.
AL Carrasquel stopped them cold in
the ninth, but they did not need any
more for all the Mats got off al
Benton consisted of seven hits and
three walks. He made them look
easy as he pitched his eighth win of
the campaign in his fourth mound
appearance since resuming work
after his broken leg mended.
Torres dropped pop fly to put
Webb on at the beginning of the
game, then Mayo singled. Cullen
bine put up loft to right that
should have been an out, but Ear
don misjudged it and the ball went
over the outfielder's head for a dou-
BILE, scoring Webb. York famed
for what ought to have been the
third out, but was only the first.
Cramer was Intentionally walked
to fill the sacks. Outlaw poled a sin
gle that sent in two more markers.
From then on Pieretti pitched su-
perbly until the eighth, but it made
no difference. He would have had
to pitch shutout ball, the way Ben
ton went
5000 Fans Wait in Rain.
More than 5000 waited in the
rain for the Griffith Stadium gates
to open. 1t took the ground crew
so long to prepare the field for play
that the first game began 81 min
utes behind scheduled time. The
Tigers kicked up fuss when Maier
was caught at the plate in the
fourth inning as he tried to count
after Vaughn made a spectacular
running catch of Newhouser's foul
1t was that close. :. Nobody
knows why Vaughn stopped on the
base path to be tagged out with an
easy steal of second in sight in the
fourth session Newhouser made
his balk in the eighth as the wet
ball slipped from his grasp when
he was about to pitch to Vaughn.
In the second set-to Kuhel took
over at first base for the Mats for
the first time since July 8. -. And
Myatt was at second base for the
first time since July /. -. Benton
was a sparkling fielding pitcher,
with six assists, one of which began
a double play.
INoo Rrrar W.lI Houorf