After a rainout yesterday, the Pirates resumed their series with the Cards in St. Louis with a doubleheader. The twinbill originally included a makeup of an April rainout, so yesterday’s game will be made up later and the five-game series is now a four-game series.
The Bucs dropped game one, 11-3, ending their three-game win streak and Emil Yde’s string of good starts. In game two, the Bucs took a four-run lead late and hung on for a 7-6 win. The Giants won today after losing yesterday, so the Pirates remain a game and a half out of first.
Yde was fine for the first three innings, but a combination of control problems and Cards’ star Rogers Hornsby led to a pair of five-run innings. The lefty gave up a two-out, solo home run to Hornsby in the first, but the Pirates came back for a 2-1 lead. In the top of the third, Clyde Barnhart doubled to drive in Kiki Cuyler and then scored on a single by Pie Traynor.
The lead didn’t survive the bottom of the fourth. A double, a single and a two-out walk loaded the bases. Two singles and a double then brought in five runs for the Cards, the last scoring on an error by Barnhart in left.
Two innings later, St. Louis added another five. A single, a walk and another Hornsby home run brought in three. After another walk, Bill McKechnie brought in Tom Sheehan. He gave up two singles and a sacrifice fly for two more runs, making the score 11-2.
The Pirates couldn’t do much damage against Jesse Haines, even though they pummeled the knuckleballer for seven runs the last time they saw him. They left a pair of runners on in the fifth, but didn’t threaten again until the eighth, when Cuyler and Traynor both doubled. That made it 11-3, and the Bucs went down in order in the ninth.
The loss left Yde at 5-5. Cuyler had three hits.
Game two was a matchup between Johnny Morrison and St. Louis lefty Bill Sherdel. The Bucs got a first-inning run when an error on Hornsby let Cuyler, who’d doubled, score. Sherdel threw four scoreless innings after that, stranding two runners in the third and three in the fifth.
The Cards came back with three in the bottom of the third. Much of the problem was walks, of which Morrison issued five in the game. After a one-out walk, Jack Smith homered to right, putting St. Louis up, 2-1. Hornsby then walked, went to third on a single by Jim Bottomley, and scored on a ground out.
The Pirates started a comeback in the top of the sixth, when Glenn Wright led off with his tenth home run of the year. The next inning, Max Carey led off with home run number three to tie the game, 3-3. A single by Eddie Moore and a double by Barnhart put runners at second and third with two out, and Wright blooped a double to center to score both, putting the Pirates ahead, 5-3.
They added some insurance in the eighth, which turned out to be crucial. Earl Smith led off with a single and moved up on a sacrifice by Morrison. Carey singled to drive in Smith, went to second on the throw home, and scored on a single by Moore for a 7-3 lead.
Morrison had kept the Cards off the board from the fourth through the seventh, stranding one runner in each inning. In the eighth, former Buc Walter Schmidt followed a two-out double by Less Bell with an RBI single to cut the lead to 7-4.
In the ninth, with one out, Jack Smith singled and Hornsby clubbed his third home run of the day. Bottomley then singled and McKechnie called for Babe Adams with the lead down to one. Adams got a popup and a ground out to close out the game.
Morrison improved his record to 7-5. Carey, Moore and Barnhart each had three hits, and Wright drove in three runs. The shortstop now has 60 RBIs in the team’s first 57 games.
