July 19, 1963 - Frank Howard came off the bench to drill his 14th and 15th home runs tonight, but it was rookie Ken McMullen’s 2-run single in the seventh that provided Don Drysdale with a winning margin over the Braves in Milwaukee. Howard has hit six homers against the Braves this year, four of them in spacious County Stadium. Fanning 11 Braves, Drysdale hurled a 4-2 victory that gave the Dodgers a 7-and-a-half-game lead, their biggest since the championship season of 1955, when they still received their mail in Brooklyn. Storms in the area hurt the gate by an estimated 10,000, but 18,547 showed up for the series opener. Los Angeles center fielder Willie Davis made another tremendous throw to contribute to L.A.’s ninth win in its 11-game road trip to date. After Lee Maye blooped a single with two away in the fourth, Joe Torre singled to center. Lee tried to take third, but Willie handled Torre’s hit perfectly and threw a strike to McMullen to nip the swift-footed Maye. Tomorrow, Sandy Koufax (16-3) puts his 9-game win streak on the line when he faces Denny Lemaster. At the present time, Koufax is the No. 1 candidate to capture the 1963 Cy Young award. Should Sandy succeed Drysdale as winner, it would mark the first time that any club has had back-to-back winners since the award was instituted in 1956.
Comments