Evening star., 1950-03-25
HiHIe's Poor Hurting
Creates Suspicion
|GriH Picked Lemon
By Burton Howkins
Stor Staff Correspondent

ORLANDO, Fla, Mar. 25.-
There's relief in sight for the
Mats but it stems only from a
sympathetic schedule which calls
for half Of Washington's remain
ing 20 exhibition games to be
played against minor league foes.
Against their major league
brethren the Mats have fashioned
only three victories in nine games,
their latest loss being 1873
affair to the Philadelphia Phillies,
who hammered Ray Scarborough
and Lloyd Hittle for 16 hits
yesterday.
Dick Weik. the skyscraping
right-hander who to us so far
hasn't conquered wildness, was to
face the Boston Red Sox today
with Joe Haynes as his collabora-
tor-but the future is brighter for
the Mats. They'll be dropping
down in class in the next three
weeks.
Remaining to haunt the Mats
are two games with the Phillies,
three with the Athletics. two with
Pittsburgh and one each with
Detroit, Cincinnati and the Red
Sox. including today's game.
Sandwiched among those con-
tests, though, are tussles in which
the Mats may regain some of their
|seeping confidence.
Face Bushers in 10 Games.
The Mats will play 10 games
with as many minor opponents.
They're booked for engagements
with Chattanooga, Birmingham,
Minneapolis, Springfield, Louis
vile, Kansas City, Charlotte, Dur
ham. Reidsville and Baltimore.
From that assortment Of BUSH
league opposition the Mats may
salvage a passable exhibition
game record.
There's CONSERVATION in the
Mats camp, though. and large
portion Of it centers on the wiry
frame of Lloyd Hittle, a $65 900
investment who hasn't shown IS
cents worth of pitching this
spring.
Hittle has appeared in nine in
nings against the Phillies, New
York Yankees and Philadelphia
AS. Over that span he has per-
mitted IA runs and 16 hits. It's
enough to make Clark Griffith
wonder if his $4,000 cash outlay,
plus players. has gone down the
drain.
Hittle is attempting to get by
with only a slight wrinkle for a
curve and it isn't fooling anybody.
Griffith admits Lloyd can't click
unless he develops a curve.
Beat Weakened Teams.
The Mats can point to three
conquests of major league teams,
but not with much pride. They
beat the Phillies when the enemy
played only one regular, but
against the Phils' regulars yester-
day it was slight case of murder.
They also whipped the Yankees
minus Joe Di Maggie, Tommy
Heinrich and Phil Rizzuto and
they spanked the Red Sox, who
were operating without Vern Ste
phens, Dom Di Maggie, Johnny
Pesky and Birdie Tebbets.
The Phils pecked away con-
sistently at Scarborough and Hit
tie yesterday. Fifteen of their
hits were singles, but they clustered
five Of them in the first inning of
Scarborough in scoring six runs,
picked up another in the second
inning on two more, then clustered
three runs in each the seventh
and eighth innings.
Robinson Hot at Plate.
Washington pried a run from
Russ Meyer in the fourth inning
on Irv Noren's pop-fly double and
Eddie Robinson's triple. The
Mats other runs were produced
in the ninth at Ed Wright's ex-
pense when Ed Stewart blasted a
home run after Robinson singled.
NAT NOTES: Robinson, batting
.407 with 13 hits in 80 attempts,
collected two of the Mats six hits.
Lefty Gomez, the famed. ex-
Yankee pitcher, was a spectator
Lefty likes the chances of
Connie Marrero. the Mats Cuban
righthander II saw him pitch
for two years in the Cuban Winter
League" said Lefty, land he has
wonderful control"
Noren is batting a mere .219
and the Mats bosses are worried
more about him than they'll ad-
NIT ). To date he hasn't demon
strated he's any f1ashy fielder.